


How I became best friends with my magical girl little sister's animal mascot

by MindFox



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dolls, Fantasy kitchen sink, Haunted Houses, Mages, Magic-Users, Magical Girls, Mimics, Monster Hunters, Monsters, The Unmasqued World, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, Witches, genre reconstruction, mascot character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 74,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindFox/pseuds/MindFox
Summary: When Enrique  Saurez decides to start investigating his sister's odd behavior, the last thing he expected was to be thrown into a world of magic and mayhem. A world that will soon prove stranger then either him or his sister would ever expect.
Kudos: 4





	1. How they met

I first noticed it when Melodia started going to bed without fighting Mom and Dad about it. My little sister was a pretty decent kid most of the time, but she hated having to go to sleep early.

‘Mama, just a little while longer?’

‘No Melodia, go to bed,”

That was the usual sight in this house. She would ask to stay up late every night, and every night Mom would say no and she’d give up and head to bed in defeat.

“Melodia, it’s time for bed,”

“Kay,”

I had been looking on my phone on the couch while laying on my side. The keyword being had. The second that ‘kay’ reached my ears, I set my phone to the side and sat up.

I looked over and saw my pajama-clad sister shuffle towards her room like a zombie. I quickly wracked my brain for something from my room that I could justify getting at this hour. I settled on my charger and got up and followed after my sister.

I made sure to not walk too fast so that Melodia would stay in front of me. She shuffled into her room and I watched as she collapsed onto her bed and started gently snoring.

I went into my own room and sat down in my chair. I gently clapped my hands in front of my face and kept them there. This was… concerning.

As far as I knew, she hadn’t done anything that would cause that kind of exhaustion. She hadn’t done any sort of heavy chores or gone out with her friends. Mostly because she didn’t have any.

She really needed to make some friends. Being able to get along with my own friends was fine, but she was twelve and I was sixteen, so that wasn’t going to work long term.

But that was a problem for another day. For now, I had a weirdly tired little sister to worry about.

I set my phone to charge, completing the fake mission that I had picked out for myself.

“Either of you notice that Melodia was weirdly tired just now?” I asked when I got back to the living room. Mom and Dad were absorbed in their Novella like they usually were at this hour.

“I’m sure she’s fine Enrique,” My Dad said before raising an eyebrow as a woman dressed as a maid burst into a room carrying a gun.

Hispanic TV is weird.

I saw that both of them were way too absorbed to carry on this conversation. I’d have better luck tomorrow morning. I bid them both goodnight and went to bed myself. Might as well get an early start tomorrow anyway.

As it turned out, my luck stayed unchanged the next morning.

“Enrique I understand that you’re worried, but I’m sure it’s fine,” My mother said as I set the table for breakfast. “Your sister was just a little tired. I’m sure that tonight she’ll be right back to arguing with us to let her stay up later,”

“Or maybe she won’t and this is her growing up,” My dad said hopefully. “Speaking of your sister, you should go wake her up now,”

Somehow neither of those ideas sat well with me. I grumbled internally as I walked down the hall. I stopped in front of her room and got ready to knock when I heard what sounded Melodia talking on the other side of the door.

“What was that yesterday?”

“I’m not too sure. We should run some checks later today to make sure everything’s fine,” My eyes widened as I clearly heard what sounded like the voice of a boy my age.

I grabbed the door and swung it open, excepting to lock eyes with whoever had snuck into my sister’s room.

Melodia jumped with a yell, the toy in her hands thrown into the air.

“Enrique, what are you doing?” She said as she caught the toy again.

“I… I was sure that I heard someone else in here,” I said as I scanned the room in confusion. There was no one else here. Had I imagined things? I looked back at my sister who was looking at me a neutral expression.

She had just woken up, still in her pajamas from last night. Her tanned skin and long black hair contrasting with the purple shirt and pants.

In fact, now that I thought about it, she had taken to wearing a lot of purple clothes in the last few weeks. She had even tied her almost ever-present ponytail with a purple hair band.

“I was… working on my ventriloquism act?” She said as she placed both of her hands on her toy and held it up. “My name is Pickati. Nice to meet you,”

She said that with a mumbled voice, trying really hard to deepen her voice into sounding like the voice from earlier. Despite her best attempts, I could clearly see her move her mouth. In short, I didn’t buy this act for a second.

“Melody, I say this because I love you,” I said as I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Stay in school,”

She pouted and put her toy to the side. My eyes followed it as it laid on her bed.

I thought she was a bit too old for plushies like this. But that wasn’t the only thing that felt off to me about that thing. It was some sort of cat or fox creature with a pure white pelt. On its back were a pair of bat wings that were a slightly duller shade of whitish gray. Behind it was a long tail that was almost twice as long as its body, the end of which was painted a bright purple like someone had dipped the end of the tail in paint.

I had never seen another toy like it, and I wasn’t too sure why I always felt uneasy around it.

“So,” Melodia said, snapping me out of it and making me realize that I had been starring at the plushie. “Why did you come into my room anyway?”

“Oh right,” I said, thankful for the reminder. “Breakfast is almost done,” I told her plainly.

I spent the rest of the day in a weird mood. There was something off about Melodia, I just knew it. But there wasn’t much I could do from inside of the school, so I just shelved it for now.

I was half tempted to skip put on tennis practice, but I found myself heading there after school out of sheer habit.

Fridays were Tennis practice. That was just the way it was for me.

I scrunched my face as I failed to serve again.

“You okay Erick?” I lower my racket and looked over at Charlie, my only real friend on the Tennis ‘Team’. Even calling us a team was a bit of a stretch. There were only five of us and we never competed in any tournaments or anything. I guess it just wasn’t that popular at our school, so it ended up just being a club for people who liked to play tennis.

“Oh hey, Charlie. Yeah, I’m fine, just a bit distracted about something. I’ll be fine,” I told her as she looked back at me with a scowl.

“If you say so. By the way, I have good news,” She said, a smile back on her face. “You know Randel?”

“The guy who thinks he’s a super tough gangster even though he’s really not?”

“That’s the one. Apparently, he and his little group got caught by the principal doing something they shouldn’t have,”

“Okay, but why do you care? I thought I was the gossipy one?”

“Because their punishment is to help clean up after some of the athletic clubs, like us,” She said with a huge smile. So that means that we get to leave a bit early.

I played for a little while longer before leaving. A quick shower and change and I was out the door. I wore my usual blue t-shirt and black jeans. The clothes went well with my hair and skin, which were the same color as my sister. I thought about maybe making the same switch to purple that Melodia had, before dismissing it. I put those thoughts aside and headed home.

Or at least I was until I spotted Melodia walking alone through town. She wasn’t heading home, and she had an intense look on her face. I looked around and saw how few people there were around.

Without a word, I started following after Melodia.

Even after twenty minutes of walking, I still couldn’t tell where she was going. There wasn’t anything in this direction that I knew about. In fact, I was pretty sure that I had never even been in this part of town.

Melodia suddenly stopped in place. I froze and watched as she turned to her side and looked down into an alleyway. I rushed after her and peered down the alley.

The end of the alley opened up to some sort of open courtyard that Melodia was standing in. In the dead center of the courtyard was what looked like a cloud of swirling black smoke.

“You have been a pain to track down you know that,” She said as she watched the dark swirls in front of her. “Pickati, let’s get this done,”

A flash of white suddenly charged out of her backpack and started floating around her. After a second or two, I figured out what it was.

A flesh and blood winged white fox that looked exactly like the plushie from this morning floated around my sister’s head. “Just say the words,”

My eyes went wide. That was the voice from this morning. I knew that I hadn’t been imagining it.

I didn’t even have the time to think about that before the dark swirls suddenly floated away to reveal what was inside.

It was tall, even taller than me, maybe taller than my dad, and he was a very tall man. Its skin was covered in what looked like metal armor over green scales. Its face was covered in a pale metal bucket-shaped helmet. It held no weapon, instead, it had long claws on its hand and feet. The closest thing it had to a weapon was a long armor covered tail with an axe attached to the end.

Before anyone could do anything, Melodia took a step forward and punched her hand out.

“Power of the stars, guide me through the deepest wells,”

There was a burst of light at the end of Melodia’s hand, engulfing her entirely. When the light faded, Melodia had changed.

Her simple blouse and pants were gone, replaced with a long dark-purple and white jacket that covered most of her back, leaving me unable to see the rest of her. Emblazoned on the back was a pitch black four-pointed star. Her sneakers were gone, replaced with white and purple boots. Her long black hair was no longer in a ponytail. Instead, most of it was hanging loose. The exception was a pair of twin tails going down the sides of her head.

The lizard knight charged, only for Melodia to snap her finger at the approaching monster. The monster instantly crumpled to the ground, snarling as it struggled to get back onto its feet.

Melodia raised her hand up, allowing me to see that they were now covered in black fingerless gloves. She pointed at the sky as a small black orb appeared over the monster.

“Gravity crush!” She yelled as she brought her arm down. The black ball followed her hand as it fell down onto the monster.

The ball hit its target and expanded into a swirling black ball that enveloped the monster. It spun in place for a few seconds before fading away. In a few seconds, it was gone, as was the monster that the orb had swallowed.

“Finally done with that,” Melodia said as she cricked her neck. She looked around for a second before starting to turn around. “Hey Pickati, where did you…”

She cut off as she spotted me in the alley.

She stood there silently, which gave me the chance to see what other changes that her transformation had caused.

Underneath the jacket, she wore a dark purple shirt covered in white swirls. Near her collar, she had a pair of black four-pointed stars. She wore white short shorts that were held up with a purple belt with a black four-pointed star belt buckle.

She held up a gloved hand and pointed at me, shaking the whole time.

“How… how long have you been standing there?” She asked sounding terrified. Before I could answer, a voice above my head did so for me.

“Too long for you to pull an ‘it’s not what it looks like’ excuse,” It said as I looked above me. The white fox thing from earlier was lazily floating above me in a circle.

“You knew that he was here and didn’t say anything?” She yelled as the fox thing floated down and curled up on top of my head. Seeing no reason not to do otherwise, I just decided to let it be.

“You were busy dealing with the Doll. I figured that it would be better not to distract you,” He explained.

I thought back to the monster that my sister had fought. The size of its claws, it's tail axe, and how my sister had dealt with it with precession and efficiency.

“I would like to go on the record as agreeing with…” I thought back to what my sister said just a moment ago. “Pickati was your name right?”

“Oh hey you remembered it,” He said as he reached outwards and hung upside down in front of me. “You’re doing better than your sister already,”

Melodia seemed to shrink in the face of those words. She took a deep breath and let it out before steeling herself.

“How is he even here Pickati?” She finally said. “I thought you put up that spell so that other people wouldn’t notice us?”

“I modified it a bit, So that humans with more than zero magic power could pass through the barrier,” He explained as I tried to contain my excitement at the implication of that sentence.

“Why don’t you two bring me up to speed?” I said as I tried to keep calm. Little did I know that this day would be the start of my life taking a bizarre new direction.


	2. Teaching the Basics

“So just to be sure that I have everything down. There’s an ancient spirit of destruction that wants his freedom back so that he can do his whole ‘mindless destruction’ thing. You are a guardian created by one of the four magi that sealed this spirit away long ago. Now that he’s awake, you and the other three spirits were tasked to find four people who could fight the spirit and his army of Doll minions that work to free him. And it just so happens that my sister is one of these warriors alongside three other girls around her age in this town.”

“That’s the basic gist of it yeah,”

I looked at the winged fox curled up on the table in front of me. We had found this little park soon after leaving that alleyway behind us. Pickati had quickly claimed this table for us and I had sat down to get the full story.

Melodia sat next to me, looking unsure how to add to the conversation.

“Okay so I get all that, but there’s just one thing I don’t get then,”

“Why children?” Pickati guessed.

“Why children? Wouldn’t it make more sense to recruit adults who have stuff like resources and driver’s licenses? Heck, why not teenagers, at least they have a little bit more freedom?” I pointed out.

“Because it is in the hopes and dreams of children that magic can still be found,” He said with a gentle smile that felt off to me for some reason. “For only those with wonder in their eyes can wield the wonders that will save all Humankind,”

“Okay, I get it,” I said as I looked over at a vending machine in the distance. I pulled out my wallet and grabbed a few bucks. “Hey Melodia, mind getting us some snacks while I talk to Pickati here?”

“Sure I guess,” She said as she took the money and started walking away. I waited for her to get out of hearing range before leaning in and talking to Pickati in a hurried whisper.

“Okay, so what’s the real deal with the ‘choosing kids’ thing? And while I’m at it, why all girls?”

“Unless actively trained, magic potential starts dropping at around age fourteen. We tracked down the four strongest children in the general area where the spirit was sealed and your sister happened to be one of them. The fact that all four of them were girls was just coincidence honestly,”

“So what are there no adult magic users anymore?”

“There are, but good luck convincing them to do anything but pack up their research and get as far from this town as possible. It’d be even worse for me because I’d have to convince them to not dissect me first,”

“And how dangerous is this spirit of destruction if it got free?”

“Well considering the local geography… I would say that sinking most of the state into the sea would be pretty likely. By that point, he should attract the attention of something capable of stopping him. Of course, that kind of battle isn’t going to end well for anyone,”

“Got it, no telling Mom and Dad or we risk a Kaiju Battle tearing this part of the world apart,” I sighed as I tried to ignore how cool that would be to see. “I’m not even going to bother with asking why you haven’t tried to contact the cops or the army. Melodia’s too smart to not do that part herself,” I took the chance to glance over at the girl in question. She was still grabbing the stuff, so we still had a bit more time.

“Metal projectiles don’t do much to Dolls. The only kind of modern weaponry that I’ve seen that could deal with them are explosives,”

“I’d rather not have to deal with artillery strikes on my way to school,” I said as I grimaced. “So children really are your best bet when it comes to dealing with them. You said something earlier about me having some magic power. If this had happened a few years ago…”

“You probably would have been chosen. That you still have this much magic at sixteen despite having no training… I would have loved to see you at your peak,”

It was at this point that Melodia started walking back, her arms full of chip bags and candy bars, plus three sodas. I raised my eyebrow at the sheer amount that she had on her.

“Hey Pickati?” I asked the fox as Melodia dropped her bounty in front of both of us. “How much cash did I give my sister?”

“More then I think you had meant to,” He responded as Melodia start to blush. She ignored us and instead handed two of the sodas over to us and opened two bags, salty chips, and sweet cookies.

“By the way Pickati, what were you saying earlier about Enrique having magic power?” She grabbed a cookie and started to eat it.

“Just like I said, your brother has some magic power in him. It’s nowhere near the amount you or the other girls have but it’s higher than average. He can’t use the power of the stars I gave you, but I could probably teach him a few minor gravity tricks,”

“Aww, you’d do that just for me Pickati?” I said with a chuckle. I was going to learn to do magic! Actual real-life magic, and with a weird unique element like Gravity too boot.

“Why not,” Pickati said with a carefree shrug. “I was made to guide and teach, might as well take the chance and train someone else,” He coiled around and laughed. “Plus, I am also a Magi at heart. Part of me is curious as to how you’ll do with certain spells compared to your sister,”

“Oh this is going to be so cool,” I said as I noticed Melodia crumple up the bag of cookies that she had opened. Without a word, she reached over to open a second bag. I let out a small cough and gave her a look. She noticed it and pouted at getting caught. “Did you finish that whole bag by yourself? Melodia, I didn’t even get to have one of those,”

“Now I’m not one for responsible decisions, but is it a good idea to have this much stuff. I mean, you’re parents are both pretty good cooks. You’re going to spoil your dinners,”

“Pickati has a point, maybe I should hang onto most of this stuff and save it for another day,” I said as I eyed the still impressive pile of food that Melodia had bought.

Melodia pouted harder and crossed her arms. “You know of all the things that I thought would happen if you two met, getting your nagging in stereo was the one I was most worried about,”

“Really,” Pickati said, sounding intrigued. He gave me a look that seemed to be asking for backup. “Because I mostly nag you into working harder towards befriending the other three chosen,”

“Do I even want to know?” I asked, knowing Melodia’s track record.

“I can work perfectly fine on my own,” She protested, the blush on her face intensifying. “I don’t need the others,”

“Yes, for now. But as time passes and the seal on the spirit weakens, the Dolls will grow in power. Good luck fighting on your own once that happens,”

“Melodia, what’s the problem with the other girls?” I asked, already having a good guess as to what the issue was. One of the advantages of those boots she had while transformed was that it was probably harder to stick her foot in her mouth.

“Well, it’s just that…” She started to explain as her blush showed no signs of stopping. “I have a tendency to freeze up a little whenever I talk to them, and that leads me to say stuff that I probably shouldn’t say,”

I was about to say something when Pickati suddenly tensed up. Melodia seemed to know what was up because she instantly dropped her arms and stopped pouting. Reading the room, I went to put away the food in my bag.

“It really did take a while to deal with that other Doll, a new one’s breaking through,”

“Where is it Pickati?”

Pickati picked himself up and launched himself into the air. He turned and twisted until he was pointing himself in a certain direction. “It’s this way,”

Melodia took off running and, seeing no reason not to, I chased after her.

“Why are you following me?” She asked as we left the park running.

“Might as well see my little sister as she works,” I explained as we ran. “Plus seeing you destroy another Doll will go a long way to letting me not feel bad about not telling Mom and Dad,”

I guess the mere mention of talking to Mom and Dad was enough to convince her because she stayed silent until we reached our destination.

It was another park, this one a bit bigger and with a lake at the end. I spotted the problem pretty quick, a swirling vortex off shadows on the ground.

“Pickati,” Melodia said in a commanding tone. As she punched her hand out.

“Already on it, any civilians should get a sudden urge to get out of here,” Pickati explained as he landed on me and curled up in my hair again. “The two of us should back up a bit and leave this to her,”

“Power of the stars, guide me through the deepest wells,” Melodia announced before transforming.

I did as told and found a few bushed by the side of the park path to hide behind.

“She’ll be okay right?” I asked my new living hat.

“No doubt, this one’s only a bit stronger than the last one,” He said with a weirdly smug tone. “Plus if what I felt when I made the privacy spell was any indication, then she’ll have back up,” He said as he stretched out and pointed at an approaching trio of girls. “Provided that Melodia doesn’t manage to insult them again by accident,”

I let out a sigh and wished my sister good luck. It sounded like she would need it.


	3. A typical fight

“Oh, it’s you,” the first of the girls said as they formed up and stood side-by-side.

The first girl, the one who spoke first, was a serious looking blond girl that was either tall for her age or a bit older than Melodia. The one on her right was a grinning black girl who had her arms behind her head. To her left was a brown-haired girl wearing glasses that was already looking a little annoyed.

“What you got nothing to say?” The blond asked as Melodia looked away from the girls and towards the swirling cloud.

“She was always bad at looking strangers in the eye,” I said to Pickati.

“Oh, you’ve seen nothing yet,”

Before he could explain, the monster began to emerge from the mist. The other three girls struck out their arms as one and said their own transformation phrase.

“Power of light, protect my heart,”

“Power of gusts, clear my path to freedom,”

“Power of Ice, stop all that would harm me,”

There was an intense flash of light and soon all three of the girls had transformed.

The blond girl now wore a simple pink and white dress that was covered in oval patterns. On her feet were a pair of plain pink flat shoes. On her chest, she wore a broach in the shape pink four-pointed star over her heart.

The black girl wore long green and white robe over what seemed to be some sort of white and dark green body suit. I could just barely see what looked like a yellow four pointed star on the bodysuit under the robe. In place of shoes, she wore sandals with little green wings on them. Near her neck, I could see that the robe was clasped with a yellow four-pointed star.

The glasses-wearing girl wore the most ‘traditional’ outfit of the four of them. A light blue shirt and skirt covered in angular white crystal designs. Her belt had a dark blue four-pointed star on it, as did both of her shoes.

“Why do all of them have that four-pointed star? Is it a logo or something?” I asked Pickati.

“Somewhat,” He explained. “The four-pointed star was a symbol of the four mages that sealed the spirit of destruction. It’s what the seal looks like and it’s also used to power up the girls,”

It was at this point that the monster finished emerging, revealing a land shark looking thing. I grimaced as I saw it tower over the girls.

“That thing has to be like three meters tall,” I commented as Melodia walked up to the thing.

“Let’s get this done quick,” Melodia said as she snapped her finger.

The shark flinched a bit before trudging forward towards the girls. The girls jumped back as it cleared the area of increased gravity that Melodia had set. It broke into a sudden run as the pink girl ran forward to meet it. I could feel my heart almost burst out my chest as I could do nothing but watch.

“Prism shield!” She yelled as the shark roared and brought down both of its arms on the girls, intending to squish them flat. However as its fists came down, a hard light barrier blocked them.

The two other girls saw their chance and ran out from under the shield, one going left, the other right.

The green one jumped in the air and pointed at the shark. The blue one stopped in place and held her open palm out.

“Air bullet!”

“Freezing mist!”

A spiral of wind erupted from the green girl’s finger as the blue mist erupted from the blue girl’s palm. The bullet slammed into the side of the shark man, sending him straight into the mist. It roared as it got out of the mist, half of its side covered in ice.

Melodia snapped her finger again as the shark fell onto one knee. It grunted as it tried to grab its fallen leg, only for the arm to also fall to the ground hard.

“Did… did she just increase the gravity in the one spot where the Doll’s leg was?” I asked as the Doll roared in pain.

“You got in one. I have a feeling that you’re going to be a fun student to teach,” Pickati beamed as the glasses-wearing girl from earlier stood in front of the shark and held her palm out again.

“Freezing mist!” She let off another burst of the mist on the Shark Doll’s downed leg. The doll roared in pain again as both its leg and arm froze solid.

“Now’s our chance Ana,” The green one said to the pink one as she pointed at the Doll’s leg.

“Ready when you are Rashell,” The pin one said as reared her arm back.

“Air bullet!”

“Prism Break!”

A blast of air shot through the Doll’s leg as a hard light shield appeared in front of the girls, only to shatter. The shard of the shield rained down on the Doll as its leg shattered.

The doll fell back and Melodia stepped forward and pointed her finger at the sky.

“Gravity Crush!” She yelled as the small black orb appeared again. It fell down on the Shark Doll, consuming him. As I watched the orb spin, I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy.

“So I know this is going to sound crazy, but that’s not a black hole right?” I said with a nervous chuckle, as I waited for Pickati’s explanation to calm my nerves.

Pickati’s silence did not help calm my nerves.

“If it helps, He finally said, “Think of them as really small and magically contained black holes,”

“That doesn’t help Pickati,”

“You think this is bad. Wait a few years and she’ll be throwing galaxy shurikens,” He said making me pause.

“How long have you been awake again?”

“About a year or two,”

I resolved to ignore that line of questioning for now and go back to focusing on the battle in front of us.

A battle that seemed just about done. The mini black hole dissipated, leaving behind nothing.

“We should showed it who’s boss!” The green girl with the cloak, Rashell I think her name was, said as she punched the air in triumph.

I could see Melodia mumble something to herself which caught the attention of all three of the girls.

“What do you mean ‘too easy’?” The blond one, Ana, demanded as she crossed her arms and glared at my sister.

I cringed as I saw Melodia tense up and stay silent. This wasn’t the first time she had frozen up when she became the center of attention.

Fortunately for her, she was saved by a strange sound coming from the lake. They all turned to look at it, their eyes locking onto something that I couldn’t see from this angle.

There were a series of splashes and I felt my veins freeze as four more of the shark Dolls emerged from the lake. The girls prepared for battle when a sudden cackling caught all of our attention.

Up above us standing on a tree branch was a strange figure. He was tall and skinny, built like a twig. His blond hair was long and unkempt. He wore no shirt, exposing the maze-like tattoo that covered his entire body from the neck down. His pants were made of a brownish fur with white trim, as were his boots. Aside from that, all he had were a pair of weird braces on his wrists.

“Break!” The three girls yelled in unison. Melodia just locked eyes with him and glared. Or at least she did until she suddenly shifted her head towards the bushes where we were hidden.

“She forgot I was here, didn’t she?” I whispered as the weird guy kept laughing.

“Looks like it. It looks like she doesn’t want us here, you should go now while we have the chance. That guy up there is Break, one of the four surviving Dolls from the last time the spirit was free,” Pickati explained as Break started taunting the girls and doing a weird dance where he jumped and clicked his heels.

“Wait I thought the spirit was sealed away a long time ago, how old is that thing?” I said as I pointed at him.

“To be fair they were in stasis for most of that time, just like us,” Pickati explained with a shrug as Break vanished and the four sharks charged the girls.

I gulped as I watched the Doll ran at Melodia, rearing its arm back in a punch. She kicked off the ground, jumping way higher than possible. She landed on the Doll’s arm and started running up towards its face.

“Hey Pickati,” I asked as Melodia jumped on top of the Doll’s head.

“Yeah Enrique?” He answered back as Melodia suddenly shot down boots-first into the Doll’s head.

“Even if I learn magic under you, what can I realistically do to help Melodia?” I said as I watched the Dolls try and grab Melodia only for her to suddenly start falling sideways like gravity was pulling her in a direction other than down.

Considering her specialty, it probably was.

“Well from what I’ve seen of you, you seem the type to value brutal honesty,” I nodded at Pickati’s observation. “The best I could see you doing is serving as a distraction while Melodia does the actual damage,” He said as Melodia landed on the ground and held her arms out.

“Gravity!” She yelled as a tiny swirling black hole appeared in each hand. “Rip!”

She launched both black holes, each stopping in the air on either side of the dazed doll. They expanded and I watched as the Doll was ripped in two by the power of gravity.

I also learned why they were called Dolls. There was no flesh or blood in those things. Instead, they were filled with a weird black ichor. She let out a sigh and looked over at the three other girls who were doing… less than well.

Ana had basically been forced onto the defensive, stuck in a loop of having her shield broken and making a new one.

Rashell danced through the air around her Doll. She launched the occasional attack, but without the back up from before, it wasn’t doing much.

The girl with the glasses, the only one who I didn’t know the name of, was maybe the worst off. She constantly froze parts of the Doll, only for it to just walk out of the mist before it could freeze. Without any backup, she had no way to directly kill the Dolls.

“They’re uh…” I said trying to put in gently. “Kind of terrible on their own,”

“I know right. I am going to be having words with the other three Guardians once Melodia manages a full conversation with the other three girls,”

Melodia just watched for a bit, studying the battles in front of her. Her eyes fell on the blue one who looked like she was getting ready for another round of mist.

“Freezing mist,” The girl cried out, her voice sounding a bit hoarse. The mist reached for the Doll, and it started walking out of it again.

Only this time, it suddenly found itself stuck in place.

Rashell panted, exhausted for the constant blasts of air. The Doll swung its arms at the girl, only to also freeze in place.

Ana made another shield, bracing herself for another hit. A hit that never came.

All three of the Dolls had been caught in a gravity trap, provided by my sister.

“Gravity Calamity,” She said plainly as a black orb appeared behind all three of the Dolls. Suddenly, black arms exploded out of the ball and grabbed each of the Dolls.

The three dolls yelled out as they were pulled into the black hole and vanished into wherever it was that black holes went.

The other three girls looked at my sister. The sudden attention caused her to freeze up again. I frowned as her face shifted into a look of neutral displeasure.

In other words, she was panicking so badly that all of her emotions were canceling each other out.

“And this is the part where everything goes wrong,” Pickati said with a frown.

“I guess you really saved us there,” Ana said tentatively as she held her hand out for her to shake. Melodia, on her part, just looked at the hand like it was some sort of foreign object.

“Come on little Sis, you can do this,” I said as I saw her mouth move to say something softly. I didn’t even have to wonder about what she said, as Ana repeated it immediately.

“Who are you calling Pathetic?” She snarled. “I thought that maybe you had finally gotten over yourself and you stuck up attitude, but maybe I guess I was wrong. Rashell, Claire, let’s go,”

The other three girls ran off as Melodia watched them. As soon as they were gone, she walked back over to us, looking exhausted. She took one look at us and sat down on the grass.

“Hey Big Brother,” She said after a while. “If I reduce my weight by twenty percent, could you carry me home?” She said as she looked at the sky.

“Sure I will,” I said without needing a second to think about it. She snapped her finger and I helped her to her feet so that she could climb up onto my back.

The three of us walked home in near silence, the only sound being the occasional sniffle from Melodia as she tried not to cry.


	4. their first conversation

I got a little worried about what I was going to say to Mom and Dad as we walked back home. I was not looking forward to explaining where Melodia got these new clothes from. Fortunately for me, the transformation wore off early into the walk and Melodia went back to her old clothes.

“Sorry about this, that last spell always drains me really badly,” She said, sounding more tired than I think I had ever heard her sound before.

“It’s fine. You don’t weigh that much right now anyway,” I said as she adjusted herself and relaxed a bit.

“I messed up again,” She said after a while.

“I’m sure it wasn’t’ that bad,” I tried to comfort her.

“I saw how badly they did against the Dolls one on one and I wanted to tell them that I could help them. That I wanted to offer to help them train and get better,” Melodia explained. “But when I opened my mouth, all of the words didn’t want to come out and all I said was ‘pathetic’. Maybe I accidentally started talking about me,”

“Hey, easy,” I told her. “You’ll get better at talking to people, I know you will,”

She didn’t respond, I got a little worried for a second until I heard her light snoring. She didn’t wake up until we got home.

“Mama, Papa, we’re home,” I said as I walked into the house. Melodia was still on my back, now fully asleep. She held Pickati in her hands, the guardian haven returned to his plushie form.

“Enrique, what happened?” Mom asked as she spotted Melodia on my back.

“She…” I started to explain when I suddenly felt Melodia shift on my back. “You up?”

“Yeah,” She mumbled. “Want to go to bed now,”

“Okay, I’ll take you there,” I said as I carried her to her room and set her down on her bed. I made sure to leave my open bag next to the bed for Pickati to climb into later.

I left Melodia to sleep for a bit as I walked outside and meet my parent’s question looks.

“What happened?” My dad asked.

“She got into a little bit of an argument with some of the kids in her school,” I told them. I wasn’t technically lying, but I still felt a little bad about not telling them about Melodia being some sort of dark magical girl. But I wanted to learn a little bit more before I did so. “It got pretty bad. They didn’t fight or anything, but she did end up crying on the way home,”

“Was she…?” My mom knew enough about Melodia to ask the unsaid question.

“She didn’t mean to start it, but she said something that she didn’t mean and it all went downhill from there,” I explained.

“Oh my little girl,” My mom said as she covered her face with her hand. “Do you think that she’ll wake up for dinner?”

I thought about what she’d been through today. “No, I think that she’ll be out until tomorrow,”

“I’ll set some aside for her anyway,” Mom said as she did just that.

I sat down to eat with my parents. I finished up and then ‘remembered’ that I left my bag in her room. I excused myself and headed off to Melodia’s room.

Once there I looked over her for a second. She was fast asleep, and Pickati was nowhere to be found. I glanced downwards into my bag. Sure enough, the Plushie had made it its new home.

I zipped up the bag and took it back to my room. I set the bag down, took my homework out, and set the plushie on my bed.

“Anytime now?” I asked it as I set my homework on the bed. I felt a bit silly talking to a toy, at least until it started glowing. A few seconds later I was looking back at a full flesh and blood Pickati.

“I have to say, this has to have been a long day for you,” He said as he swirled around the room.

“Yeah, it has been,” I told him as I twirled the pencil in my hand. “You said the best I could do is serve as a distraction. You mind explaining that a bit more?”

Pickati landed on my bookcase and took a moment to answer. “Do you remember what it was that Melodia said when she transformed? The power of the stars isn’t just some phrase. It’s a manifestation of the Magi’s power, grown and cultivated over the course of years. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the four powers are some of the most powerful sources of magic in the world,”

“And all that power in the hands of four preteen girls,” I said with a chuckle. “So what does the power do?”

“The first thing it does is act as a wellspring. A source of magic power that boosts her already impressive stores by an immense amount. A good amount of it goes into strengthening her body. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call her superhuman in her transformed state. It also gives her access to a set of premade spells that she can easily cast,”

“The Gravity crush, Gravity rip, And Gravity calamity,” I said as I remembered what it was that Melodia said in those fights.

“Among others, she has another spell or two that you haven’t seen, plus a few more that she still hasn’t mastered,” He put it plainly. “That’s why I said that a distraction would be the best you could do. Because without something like the power of the stars, you just don’t have the raw power to consistently perform in combat against the Doll’s,”

“Could you give me some numbers here or what?”

“After a few months of training, making things weightless or double their weight would be an impressive feat to be proud of. Your sister uses miniaturized black holes, I don’t think I need to say more,”

“So there really isn’t anything that I can do to help her out in the front lines then,” I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Hey, those gravity zones. Were they spell stored in the power of the stars too?”

Pickati gave me a literal vulpine grin.

“Oh no, those were original spells made by Melodia herself, with my help of course,” He said in a prideful tone that I couldn’t help but share.

There was just one more thing that bothered me.

“If you’ve been sealed away so long, how do you speak modern English so well?”

“Noticed that didn’t you? It took your sister a bit longer to do the same,”

“When you mentioned galaxy shurikens, I thought that it was weird that you knew what a shuriken or a galaxy even was. Let alone that you were referencing a show that aired way before you woke up,”

“We had some ability to interact with the outside world,” he explained. “Astral projection mostly, seeing the outside world in my dreams. And let me just say, you humans have been doing pretty well this last century,”

“Oh, thanks,”

“You’re pretty observant, that will serve you well when you decide to start your magic training under me,”

“Thanks,” I told Pickati as I thought about just what I saw today. “Mind if I ask another question?”

“Go right ahead,”

“I’m just going to assume that neither of our parents knows anything about all this. Was that your suggestion or…”

“I left that up to Melodia to decide. She told me that it would be better if they didn’t know. Something about your father’s leg,”

A rush of something unpleasant coursed through me as I let out a groan.

Dad was nothing if not protective of Melodia. The man had taken a knife to the leg for her. If he had seen what I had seen today…

He wouldn’t have been like me, hanging back once it was clear that Melodia had this handled. He would have rushed in, his fists up and ready to brawl with that shark Doll. I knew that no force on earth could have stopped him from protecting his little girl. I shuddered as the mental image of my dad getting splattered onto the ground tried to worm itself into my thoughts.

Telling Dad would get him killed the next time a Doll came knocking. Telling mom would also get Dad killed, they told each other everything. As much as I hated to admit it, not telling them was the right call. They might hate us for it, but I would rather have either one hate me than dead.

“Is that all for now?”

“Yeah, I guess it is. You can relax a bit, I’m going to try and get this homework done,” Pickati smirked in amusement.

“Getting your weekend homework done on Friday night, industrious little human aren’t you,” He said as he floated down on the bed and curled up into a ball. “In that case, I’m going to take a quick nap,”

He closed his eyes as I got to work, trying my hardest to not think about how my sister had spent the last few months fighting for her life on a weekly basis.


	5. cherished memories

Melodia had woken up in better shape than she had been when she passed out the night before. When she had emerged from her room she had had a round of near bone-crushing hugs waiting for her from both of our parents.

It hadn’t taken much from Melodia to explain what happened the day before. I had managed to get to her first that morning and told her the story we were giving our parents. She had just added to what I had said. She had said something that she hadn’t meant to say in a way that it wasn’t meant to be taken.

It happened often enough that they understood without question.

After breakfast, we had the day free. I had managed to get the lion’s share of my weekend homework done and Melodia didn’t have that much to do. With me helping her through it, she could get it done in maybe an hour.

With the day free, I had told our parents that Melodia and I were going to go out for a bit.

We told them that we were going to hang out, eat ice cream, and maybe see a movie. In truth, we would be doing all of that, plus magic training. The basics for me, some more advanced stuff for Melodia.

But first, Melodia, Pickati, and I had some ice cream to eat. I got myself a cup of vanilla, Melodia got her usual mango flavor, and apparently, Pickati had a taste for mint.

“Pickati, I swear, if you spill any of that ice cream in my bag, I’m going to use your furry behind like a rag to clean it,”

“No promises,” I heard him say from inside my bag with a mocking laugh. He was apparently eating it by reducing the gravity of small bits of the ice cream so that it would rise into the air. When I had noted that it seemed like a weird way to use magic, Melodia had confessed that she had once used gravity magic to keep the contents of a taco from spilling out.

Needless to say, I had found myself brainstorming of my own frivolous way to eat a food with gravity magic.

“We’re here,” Melodia suddenly said as we reached what I could only describe as an abandoned building. It looked like it may have once been some sort of one story shopping building, but it had been abandoned so long that the grass had managed to crack through the asphalt in several places and the walls were covered in ivy and tree leaves.

“I have several questions,”

“It’s legally abandoned, there are permanent spells on it that keep people out, and the building has been reinforced with magic,” Pickati explained as he popped out of my bag, his cup of ice cream between his paws.

“And just like that, my questions are answered,” I looked over at Melodia. “Lead the way,”

Melodia nodded at me and walked up to the fence. She looked around and confirmed the coast was clear before kneeling down. She froze mid crouch and looked back at Pickati and I.

“How is he going to jump the fence if he can’t control his own gravity though?” She pointed out.

“Well he could either jump the fence the normal way or I could reduce his gravity for him until he manages to get it down for himself,” Pickati suggested.

“I vote for the second option,” I said without missing a beat.

Melodia just raised an eyebrow and turned back to the fence. She kicked off and jumped high enough to reach the very top of the fence. She grabbed the top and used it to pull herself across the fence. She floated a bit before suddenly falling. She hit the ground with a dull thud before turning back to me.

“So should I do the same she did?”

“Yes and, this is the important part, whatever you do, don’t kick off to hard. Better for you to jump too low and need to try again then for the opposite. Also, don’t do anything that will send you spinning,” He said before looking down at his ice cream and grimacing. “We should have gotten ice cream after training instead of before,”

I didn’t need any further explanation on that particular point so I just walked up to the fence and got ready. Pickati put his paw on me and I could see the purple at the end of his tail glow a bit.

“Okay, I’ve lowered your gravity, so you can kick off anytime,” He said as he retracted his paw. I took a deep breath and jumped, making sure to not kick too hard.

Being weightless was strangely calming, I would say it felt like I was freely suspended in air, but that was exactly how it felt. I grabbed the top of the fence before I went past it. I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled myself forward over the fence. I adjusted myself so that my feet were aiming downwards and pushed myself softly towards the ground.

Pickati flew over and put his paw on me. I suddenly felt my body get its weight back as my shoes clicked on the asphalt below me.

“Enrique, are you okay?” Melodia said as she motioned to something on my face. I touched and found that I was smiling like a crazy person.

“Melodia, Melodia,” I said as I walked up to my sister and grabbed her shoulders. “I… magic,” I said as though it explained everything. To be fair it did for me.

I didn’t say anything else besides sounds of excitement and glee. I was pretty sure that I was incapable of anything else at that point.

“Let him work it out of his system for a bit,” Pickati said as he floated past us. “You two really are siblings. He’s acting just like you did when you used your antigravity spell of the first time,”

Melodia pouted as the guardian smugly swirled over her head.

I did finally calm down and collected myself long enough to go into the building.

Whatever it was that I had been expecting, it hadn’t been a large empty open room. Scattered on the edges of the room were a few benches and chairs. Above our heads was a skylight to make up for the fact that the building had no electricity.

“So what are we going to do?” I said as we walked into the center of the room.

“Well, Melodia is going to be working on her own thing,” Pickati explained as Melodia walked ahead and eyed the roof. She jumped up and suddenly flipped in the air, landing with her feet on the ceiling. As soon as she was stable, she kicked off and did the same with one of the walls. As she kept shifting, I noticed something a bit strange.

“How is her hair always pointing down relative to her body?” I asked Pickati who smiled back at me. He started leading me over to one of the benches at the edge of the room.

“That actually has to do with what will hopefully be the second thing that you will be learning today. I’ll explain it if we get that far,” He said as he floated up to my face. “So now let’s see if you can answer one of my own questions,”

“Go right ahead,” I said as I sat down.

“How many humans do you think are born with any amount of magic power? You don’t have to give me an exact amount, just a rough estimate will do. I’ll give you a hint, I’ve already told you everything you need to know to answer that question,”

I leaned back and started thinking.

What did I know about magic from what Pickati had told me? I knew that it was old, but still around. He had mentioned other magic users after all. He also implied that most of them were some sort of magical scientist, with the whole dissection line. Was there anything else…?

The thought struck me like a lightning bolt. I leaned forward and stomped my feet on the floor in front of the bench.

The guardians had chosen the four strongest children in this local area. Chosen implied that there had been enough candidates for them to pick from. Even in an urban area like this one, those were decent numbers.

“It’s not something like every child, but it’s higher than you would think based off how rare magic is?” I said, confident in my answer.

“Correct, to be exact, around forty to sixty percent of all humans born in a year have at least a spark of magic potential,” Pickati said as he spun around my head. “Now for my second question. If magic potential is so common, why are magic users so rare?”

For this one, I already had a rough idea.

“Learning magic is either hellishly hard or almost impossible without the help of another magic user.”

“That’s exactly the issue. The truth of the matter is that magic potential means nothing if you have no idea how to activate it. And without another Magic user to show you the way, the average person has no hope of activating their magic on their own,” He explained. “So that means that the lesson for today will be to do just that,”

He went into an explanation of how exactly we would be doing this. Pickati would reach into me and find the magic I had buried inside me. He would be able to drag it up to a place where I could access it. From there it would be up to me to take hold of it and make it mine.

If I couldn’t do it, then the magic would return to its buried state and we would have to start from the beginning. Which we probably would. Melodia had taken about an hour to learn this, and her magic was still whole. I, on the other hand, would be working with much less.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I said as took in a deep breath and mentally prepared myself. A process that mostly involved me trying really hard to not freak about MAGIC!

Pickati put his paw on my chest and closed his eyes. I found myself doing the same. Soon afterward, I started feeling something in my chest. A strange blue glow started shining through my eyelids. I opened my eyes and saw that there was a sphere of blue light emerging from my chest.

I steadied my breathing as I pictured the orb in my hands. It was being dragged up by a hook on the line. I walked up to it and took hold of it with my hands.

It felt warm, comforting, and strangely nostalgic. As I held it, I started seeing flashes of memories in my mind. Scenes from my childhood, a time where my magic would have been strongest.

It felt like I was meeting an old friend, one who had moved away as a kid and had come back into my life.

And then, it stopped. The glow ended and I was back in reality.

“You did pretty good for your first try,” Pickati explained as he backed up a bit. “You were starting to get a feel for it, but it slipped before you could finish. Ready to try again?”

I simply nodded, leaned back, and began again.

One thing that I had picked up pretty quickly, was that the process was much more time consuming then I had thought it was. Around the fifth time we stopped, I noticed that enough time had passed that it was now time for lunch.

We all sat down and ate the food that Mom had made for the two of us. Melodia explained what she was up to, a new spell that increased the gravity in the three-meter area around her by three times. Unfortunately, she had no pointers for me when it came to unlocking my magic.

It had come easily to her and it had been a pretty long time ago. She did, however, explain that the nostalgic flashes didn’t come to her.

Made sense, she was too young to have anything to be nostalgic over.

After we finished our lunches, we went back to work. Melodia on increasing the weight of the area around her, me on unlocking my magic.

We left that training area with both of our projects unfinished. However, unlike Melodia, there was no reason why I couldn’t keep working on my project at home.

Melodia had the ‘job’ of keeping my parents downstairs while Pickati and I worked on my magic. Of course, the fact that it also gave her a chance to have a movie night with my parents went unsaid by Pickati and I.

“Okay,” I said as sat on my bed with my back to the wall. “Let’s try this one more time,”

“Are you sure? You’re starting to look pretty beat,” Pickati said as he held up my phone in front of me and tapped the screen. “It’s already pretty late. We still have all day tomorrow to work on this you know,”

“Yeah, but still. It’s magic. I have one more try in me, so let’s do this,”

Pickati just sighed before giving me an exhausted smile. He set my phone down on the bed next to me and touched my chest again.

I closed my eyes and I felt the now familiar sensation of my magic being dragged up from the deepest parts of my soul. I waited for it to stop rising and then grabbed it with my metaphorical hands.

Once again I was hit with a rush of old memories. I paid the individual memories no mind, instead focusing on the overall sensation they filled me with. I poured that feeling into the orb as I bought it close to me.

I wrapped my arms around it and held it tight.

I felt myself smile as the orb and I melded into one.

I opened my eyes and felt the magic coursing through me. It was faint but willing to rise at any time at my command.

Pickati laughed as he started floating around me in a circle before landing on my head. “Congratulations Enrique, you are officially a mage,” he said sounding overjoyed. I let out a laugh. I was right there with him.

My magic was small, and I had almost lost it. But now it was in my hands again, and I already knew that I would never let go.


	6. Heavy conversations

I was proud to say that the first thing I did as a Magi was pass out from exhaustion. Sure other people would look at me like I was crazy. I had just gained magic and I wanted to sleep.

Those people had not spent the lion’s portion of a day trying to unlock said magic. Plus I had all of the next day to get to the meat of my magic.

Needless to say, I woke up in a good mood.

“Good morning everyone,” I practically sang as I slid into the kitchen. Without missing a beat I pulled out my chair, spun it a bit and sat down while wearing what was probably the world’s goofiest grin.

Most teenagers would feel self-conscious about acting so giddy around their parents. I would know, I was one of them two days ago.

But I was a magi now so who the heck cared about that.

“You’re in a good mood,” My Dad said, sounding a little disturbed.

“Yes, I am,” I said dramatically as I leaned back in my chair. “No idea why,”

Melodia rolled her eyes but still couldn’t help the smile on her face.

My parents didn’t pry into it and a little while later, they were walking out the door to head to church.

Melodia and I waved them off as we watched them from the front door.

When we had been younger, the two of us had gotten dragged to Catholic service on a weekly basis. But as time passed, and I got old enough to stay at home by myself, I had stopped going. My parents were a bit uncomfortable ‘forcing’ someone to go to mass, so it hadn’t been much of a problem.

A few years later, A.K.A. a few months ago, Melodia has also decided to start staying home from church.

As such we had Sunday morning to ourselves so we usually used it as a sibling bonding day. Normally we spent it playing video games, today we would be dwelling into magic.

Well, I would at least. Melodia was to the point that everything she was working on needed a ton of open space to test. As such, she had instead decided to take a seat in one of the chairs and read a book.

“So what’s my first spell,” I asked as the three of us sat at around the living room. “I imagine that it’s something pretty basic,”

“You’d be right, so I hope you weren’t hoping to start with something crazy,” Pickati said as laid down on the couch. “Today you’re going to be learning how to maintain an internal gravity,”

Pickati explained that the most basic and vital magic that a gravity mage has is the ability to maintain their internal gravity. With the spell active, the internal organs of the mage would always experience one earth’s worth of gravity pointing downwards. At least, it would up to a point. Melodia increasing my gravity by a hundred times would still crush me like a pancake.

The spell also affected hair and clothing which explained Melodia’s hair yesterday.

As for how I would be learning it…

I would start by meditating as I reached for my magic. Once I was sure that I was using my magic, I then had to infuse my magic with a base concept or idea. For all three of the people in the living room, that concept was gravity.

If I didn’t, then the magic would remain pure. And Pickati was extra sure that I understood that the only safe thing you could do with pure magic was to make it glow a little.

Apparently, once you got used to infusing your magic with a certain base concept, it became difficult to infuse it with other things. As such generalist magi were non-existent.

Once the base concept was applied, the magic changed. It was no longer pure magic, but gravity magic. From there, other concepts could be applied.

A certain series of concepts applied to a specific kind of magic is what is known as a spell.

So once my magic was infused with gravity, I had to then apply the concepts of self, internal self, and stability in that order.

Self to select the target.

Internal self to specify what part of me I was targeting.

Stability to command the gravity from changing.

“For now, let’s try to see if you can infuse your magic with the concept of gravity,” Pickati explained from his curling spot on top of my head. “If you feel like you’ve done it, stop and allow me to check before you do anything else. Messing up an infusion is ludicrously easy, and it’s hard to tell if you’ve done so without experience,”

I closed my eyes and started working on calling forth my magic.

I smiled as I felt my magic burst to attention and start to swirl inside me. I concreted on the very idea of gravity.

An apple falling from the tree.

A waterfall roaring as the water cascaded downwards.

A moon orbiting its planet.

A black hole swallowing all that it touched.

A child jumping in the air and landing back down.

I pictured myself taking all of these images and compressing them into a little purple and black ball. I called my magic forward and pushed the ball forward, combining the two.

I smiled as the magic turned the same color as the ball. My pure magic was now gravity magic, and ready to be infused with other concepts.

Remembering Pickati’s words, I stopped there. I opened my eyes and looked upwards. My eyes met Pickati’s who was hanging his head from the top of my mine.

“How’d I do?” I feeling like a kid asking his teacher to look over his work.

Which I guess I was now that I thought about it.

Pickati let out a hum as he placed his paw on my head. “A good first try, but the magic and the gravity concept aren’t’ fused properly. If you tried to use this, the bonding would become undone when you activated the spell, and you’d be attempting magic with pure magic,” Pickati said as I remembered what he said about pure magic.

“What could have happened if I had then?” I asked, my face giving away my worry.

“Well considering the concepts you would have been trying to apply and assuming that each of them had this level of infusing…” He said as I spotted a bead of sweat drop down the side of his head. “Well, the best case scenario would be nothing at all. Worst case would be for all of your organs to lock up, killing you instantly,”

I blinked a few times at the information.

“And just to make sure I understand correctly, you were teaching my sister this too?”

“Oh no for your sister I was much stricter,” He explained as Melodia shudder a bit from the book she was reading.

“You were so freaking strict. The smallest mistake and I had to trash the whole spell and start from the beginning. Which I guess was fine considering what would have happened if I had messed up. Plus I can do this now,” She said as casually let go of the book in her hands. To my utter lack of surprise, it stayed floating in place.

“I really hope I never stop thinking that’s cool,” I said as I looked back up at Pickati.

“You and me both. There’s nothing more disturbing than a jaded and cynical magi. Ready to try again?”

I was indeed. I closed my eyes and tried infusing my magic with gravity again. I let out a sigh as Pickati told me that my second attempt was a little better but still nowhere near enough.

If I wanted magic I was going to have put in the time and really work for it.

Needless to say, I was far from done by the time my parents came back. I had a long way to go after all.

The rest of the day was spent in relative peace. I finished up the rest of the homework that I had left over from Friday and then we all went out to eat for Sunday dinner.

And so Sunday came to a close, and the weekend with it.

Going back to school the day after felt wrong. My life had changed in a way that I would have considered impossible, and now I had to act like it never happened.

“Yo, Erick, what’s up?” I jumped as someone suddenly jumped at my back.

I looked back, already knowing who it was.

“Why are you like this Charlie?” I greeted my fellow tennis player as she jumped back and gave me a big, toothy grin.

“Well, you’re looking better. You deal with what was bugging you on Friday?”

“Kind of I guess. I went from not knowing what the problem was, to knowing the problem but having no clue how to fix it,”

“Well if you ever need some advice, then your old buddy Charlie is right here,” She said pointing to herself. I just rolled my eyes before heading to class. Charlie laughed and followed after me.

I felt a strange sensation as soon as Charlie and entered our first class. It felt like someone was watching me. And not just my body, but my soul and mind too. I took my seat and tried to ignore it the best I could.

To my surprise, this actually worked a little. The sensation died down after a while until it became a barely noticeable feeling in the back of my head. I figured that it would pass in time.

But it stayed, it stayed throughout all of first period. It stayed as I said goodbye to Charlie and walked to second period. It stayed all thought that class too until it finally went away as I walked out of my second period.

I walked off to third, ready to deal with the rest of the day.

And then it came back when I walked into fourth.

I held in a scream as I sat down and did my best to focus on the copy of The Great Gatsby that I had in front of me.

I scowled as the feeling followed me from forth to lunch. I was sick of this sensation, and even Charlie inched a bit away from me when I sat down next to her on the patio outside the cafeteria.

Of course, the rest of my friends showed their concerns as well.

“Wow man, who set a firecracker off in your cornflakes?” Jason said, looking weirdly impressed with himself.

“Did you… make that up?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“You know he did,” Mice said as she shot the boy a tired look. “Jason stop making up idioms, the ones you make are dumb anyway,”

We all laughed, except for Jason who faked pouted a bit before laughing too.

We kept chatting a bit, and as we did so the feeling got a little easier to ignore. My bad mood was easily forgotten.

“Excuse me,” An unfamiliar voice cut into the conversation. We all stopped and turned to the source of the voice.

It was another kid, maybe a freshman. He was pretty short, with pale skin and dark hair. He had a large backpack on his backpack, in fact, it looked a little too big for him. He had an intense look on his face, and he was looking right at me.

“Can we help you?” Charlie asked, trying to be friendly. This kid’s eyes moved to Charlie and then to Mice and Jason.

“Not all of you,” He said with a frown. His eyes went straight back to me. “I need to speak with you for a little bit. Can you please come with me?”

“Sure I guess,” I said as I grabbed my bag and got up from the table.

Jason grabbed my shoulder before I got up all the way.

“If you don’t come back before lunch ends, want us to come looking for you?” He said only half joking.

I looked at the strange kid. Either he was connected to the spirit of destruction, in which case I wanted my friends nowhere near him, or he wasn’t and I could handle him by myself.

“No, I think I’ll be fine,” I told him as I got up. The boy started walking away, and I followed right behind him.


	7. And so the circle expands

I followed after the weird kid, even as we left the courtyard and headed to the classrooms. We stopped in front of one of the said classrooms.

Wordlessly, he opened the door to the classroom and stepped in. I followed in likewise, closing the door behind me. He walked to one of the many desks, pulled out the chair and took a seat. I pulled out the seat next to him and sat down.

“So,” I said as we sat across from each other. “What’s your name?” He leaned back and watch me for a moment.

“Marvin,” He finally answered.

“Okay, Marvin. My name is…”

“Enrique Ricardo Gomez Suarez, age sixteen. Born October fourteenth here in the U.S. to Peruvian immigrants,” He listed off like he was reading it off a paper.

“How do you know all that?” I asked as I got ready to run out of the room if need be.

“I have my ways,” He said without elaborating further. He suddenly got an intense look in his eyes as he leaned forward and glared at me. “So tell me, how long have you been a Magi Enrique?”

He was… a magic user. There was another magic user in my school?

“Well, this would be my second day I guess,” I explained as I weighed my options here.

Well, the options were weighed and all I had was, sit peacefully and hope for the best.

“Well, that would explain some things. I have to admit, I was a little worried when I walked into school today and felt an unfamiliar magical presence enter the school. I was worried that I was going to have to deal with something problematic,”

“So we cool then?” I asked hopefully. He took a careful look at me shaking his head.

“Not yet. First, tell me what base concept you infuse your magic with,”

“Well… my teacher uses gravity magic and he’s teaching me to do the same,” I really, really hope that gravity magic wasn’t some sort of big deal.

“Gravity, that’s rare school. I thought all of the gravity magi were wiped out after the Dackon family died out,”

“Well, I guess they weren’t,” I said as I tried to focus on keeping a straight but friendly face. He looked me over for a while before letting out a sigh.

“If you were a danger, you wouldn’t be this open. I’ll let you be for now,” He said as he got up from his chair. “Oh, and I guess I should tell you. If you want to meet the other magic users in this school, come to this address afterschool on Thursday,” He took out a piece of paper and handed it to me before walking towards the door.

“Thanks,” I told him as I eyed the address. It was on a pretty crowded street filled with shops and cafés. Underneath the address was a direction to ask for private room number three.

“What kind of password is Book Fair?” I asked as Marvin opened the door.

“One that most people aren’t going to guess,” He answered back. “Oh, and you won’t have to worry about the tracker I placed on you earlier anymore,”

He walked out the door and I felt the annoying sensation at the back of my head finally fade away completely.

Well, know I knew were that annoyance came from. I glanced down at the paper in my hands and sighed. I would have to ask Pickati about it when I saw him later today. For now, it was time to head back to my friends and actually eat lunch.

But first I would have to think of an excuse. I couldn’t tell my friends about this magic business, so I needed something for them when they asked. It would have to be something simple and easy to remember, but hard to causally disprove.

It probably would have been easier if Marvin had stayed to help me with this.

“So what he’d want?” Jason asked as I got back to the table.

“Let me eat first, then I’ll tell you,” I said as I took out my lunch from my bag and chowed down.

I finished my mom’s cooking pretty quickly, mostly because I could almost feel the three pairs of eyes watching me as I ate.

“Long story short, I saw something kind of private and just gone sworn to secrecy,” I explained simply, hoping that it would be enough.

As it turned out, I was right. They let it go after that, and I spent the rest of the school day in peace. Which was nice.

“You met a what?”

Dealing with a panicking Pickati on the other hand, not so nice. I had met up with Pickati and Melodia on the way home and was now walking with both of them. Upon seeing me, Pickati had stealthily flown out of Melodia’s bag and into mine. I had told them about what had happened to me. Melodia responded with a bit of interest, while Pickati responded with…

“How did I miss this? A single Magi attending Enrique’s high school should have been easy to detect, let alone a group of them. This could be bad, I’m going to have to check these guys out to be sure that none of them are dangerous. And I’m also going to have to go through the students of both of your schools to make sure that there wasn’t anyone else I missed,”

That.

“Pickati, maybe you should calm down a bit?” I said even as a little voice in my head told me that telling someone to calm down was the worst way to make someone calm down. Still, I had to do something to soothe the small furry thing thrashing around in my bag. “Marvin didn’t seem like a bad guy. Plus, if he turns out to be friendly, maybe we can tell him and the other magic users about the whole spirit of destruction situation,”

He let out a sigh and gave me a tired look.

“Maybe, but there are complications when it comes to dealing with Magi,”

“Oh right the dissection thing,” I said as I remembered what it was Pickati said about Magi earlier. “Actually, do you mind if I ask you what most Magi are like?”

“Actually, I kind of want to know too,” Melodia chimed in.

“Well, I can’t say for sure what modern Magi are like, but I can tell you what they were like back then. Most Magi back in the day were researchers at heart. What can I do with this base concept, what will happen if I combine it with this concept, how many concepts can I go up to?”

“So they were the internet meme version of engineering students?” Melodia asked as Pickati and I both gave her the same look. “What, I can meme… I think,”

“Moving on,” Pickati said like Melodia had never spoken. “The main worry for me personally is that they’ll take me apart to see what spells were used to make me,”

“Considering that you’re my magical teacher and friend, I would rather not have you chopped up,” I admitted. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to this meeting,”

“No, you have to go!” Pickati suddenly yelled. “They already know about you, so we’re at an informational disadvantage. You both need to go to this thing, and find out everything you can,”

“Wait, why do I have to go to this thing?” Melodia asked as she suddenly twisted her head towards us.

“Because your Brother, who can barely infuse his magic, is walking into a den of potentially hostile magi, and you are the magic equivalent of a battle tank,”

Melodia looked to the side to avoid Pickati’s gaze. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point. I’m not going to talk to anyone if I don’t have to though,”

“I don’t know how I should feel about my little sister acting as my bodyguard,” I admitted as I started to worry.

“I don’t like it either, but until we know more about these magic users, then we have no other choice,” Pickati argued.

“Are you going to be coming too?” I asked as Pickati suddenly froze.

“Maybe,” He said with a grumble. “It’d put me in a prime position to scope these magi out. On the other hand, it also exposes me to people who might like to use me as research material,”

We walked on a bit in silence after that.

“Well, we have a few days to figure all that out,” I figured as we approached the house. “For now we have other things to worry about,”

“Like working on your infusing. With enough luck and effort, you should have it down by the time we have to meet up with these Magi,” Pickati said before catching the look I was giving him.

“And it also gives us time to work on one of your weaknesses Melodia,” I told my sister with a devious grin on my face.

“What are you talking about?” She sounded unamused.

“Oh don’t worry Melodia. Between you’re the two of us, we’ll be able to help you solve your problem easily,”

“Oh no,” She whimpered as she realized what was happening.

“Don’t you worry little sis, when the next Doll shows up, you and the other girls will be taking it on as a team” I said with a grin that showed nothing but concern for my sister.

Honestly.


	8. small victorie

We didn’t move on to helping my sister with her problem right away of course. No first came homework and then an hour or two of training. I made some progress that day. My infused magic still wasn’t perfect, but each attempt was better combined then the last.

Of course, that didn’t mean much when what I needed was perfection. Pickati had taken another chance to make sure I understood that ‘good enough’ in magic meant ‘good enough to accidentally kill you’.

Needless to say, I was no need to rush my training.

I finished up both my mundane and magical studies before walking over to Melodia’s room. I looked at Pickati who was on my shoulder before I knocked. I waited for a second until I heard a soft ‘come in,’

“Hey,” I said as I walked into the room.

Melodia was laying down on her bed with her feet up against the wall. “Hey you two,”

“You’re homework done?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s on the desk if you want to see it,” she said with a sigh. I leaned over and did just that. Just like she said, it was done.

“After Mom calls us down for dinner, want to talk about it?” I asked her, the specification of what ‘it’ was went unneeded.

“Yeah, I guess we should,” she said sounding resigned to her fate. “You know, when you learned about all of this, I kind of figured that it would lead to this,”

“What can I say, I got to look out for my little sister. You’re the only one I got after all,” I said with a cheesy grin.

Melodia quickly turned her head so that I couldn’t see her face. Not that it helped, I still heard the bit of laughter that she tried to keep in.

Dinner was a simple thing that night. We both ate quickly and headed back upstairs. Melodia didn't waste a moment to launch herself onto my bed. She landed and bounced up a bit before settling in place.

Pickati uncurled himself from the spot where he had been sleeping on top of my dresser.

I let out a chuckle as I walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. “So maybe we can start from, well, the start,”

“Do we have to? I messed up so bad,”

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” I argued.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that I was the second one of us to get chosen,” She said as we both glanced up at Pickati who simply nodded. “Ana got her powers a little before me. We mostly handled the Dolls one by one for a while. I would deal with a Doll one week and she’d handled the Doll the week after.

It worked pretty well, the Dolls were kept in check and my magical training was coming along too. And then the spirit of destruction decided to up its game one week. Ana was on the ropes, so I had to swoop in and bail her out. I finished it off after she weakened it for me, and right after that, the trouble began.

You see, I wanted to thank her for handling the Dolls that I couldn't get to,”

“The problem was, Ana had no clue that we were doing so,” Pickati elaborated. “She simply thought that the Dolls were showing up every two weeks,”

“So when the only thing I could manage out of my mouth was ‘nice work,’ I guess it sounded sarcastic or something,” Melodia shuddered and forced herself to keep talking. “She got really mad and started saying that the only reason I won was because she had softened it up for me, which she had. And I wanted to tell her that I knew that, but she was just so mad at me that I froze up. She just kept yelling at me and I couldn't say anything at all. Eventually, it was just too much and all I could do was run,”

She turned over, digging her face into the bed. She let out a frustrated groan that gave me the impression that she didn’t want to talk anymore.

“A little bit after that, the two other girls appeared,” Pickati continued. “There were other incidents of attempted compliments or comments getting misunderstood. The fact that she usually froze up afterward also didn't help,”

“It’s not like it matters anyway,” Melodia said as she rejoined the conversation. “We’re reaching the point where’d they just slow me down anyway,”

“Melodia, you can't just run from your problems like that,” I admonished.

“But I’m being serious though,” She argued as she dug both arms into the bed and pushed herself up to look me in the eye. “Those four spells you saw them flinging around, that’s all they got. The Ana from now is barely any stronger than the Ana I saved the first time we meet. I’m training, learning new spells, getting stronger all the time. And they… aren't.”

“And you’re worried that it’s going to be a problem?”

“It already is. The monster you saw me fight, the armored lizard, that was one they fought first. They hurt it pretty bad, but it managed to get away from them. Without a spell-like gravity crush, they couldn’t get a kill shot on it. Not only that, but they didn’t even notice that it survived. I had to spend the week tracking it down while they got smoothies,”

I looked up at Pickati who would hopefully have a bit more… unbiased view of the situation.

“Your sister, while still trying to run from her problems, has a point,” He said with a worried look on his face. “I have no idea what the other three guardians are doing. The other three girls should all be on equal footing with your sister. Instead, she already eclipses then in both power and skill, let alone discipline,” His eyes locked onto a gulping Melodia. “In fact, one of the reasons why I want you to befriend these girls is so that I can investigate and find out just what is going on,”

“While this would normally be the point where I object to using my Sister as a pawn in any way, the stakes on this one are kind of high,” I said before leaning over Melodia. “Also you need to practice making friends anyway,”

“Ugh, fine, so what do you want me to do?”

“Okay so first of all, do you see any of these girls when you’re not fighting Dolls,” I said as I started forming a plan.

“Yeah, I have fifth period with all three of them,”

“They go to your school?” I let out a high pitched squeal that I had to fight to keep from turning into a yell. “How have you not cleared all of this up already, you see them every day?”

“Ana holds a grudge,” She tried to defend herself. “And whenever I try to, I just mess it up and make it worse,”

“How can you make it worse?”

“Well, there was one time that Ana was messing around near the stairs. I tried to tell her to be careful, you know, to be friendly. But the words got hard to say, and then she actually tripped and fell. She was fine, but that was the point when I actually her to be careful. I was so embarrassed that I took off without saying anything else. I couldn’t even look at them for a week after,”

Melodia covered her face with her hands and let out a groan. I felt my eyebrow twitch as I gave my sister a cold stare.

“No offense Melodia, but I’m starting to see why these girls think you’re a sarcastic jerk who makes fun of them,”

Melodia let out another sigh.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure they think I’m a sarcastic, arrogant, jerk who makes fun of them,”

“Okay, so I don’t think talking to them at school is the right play here,” I said, changing tracks. “New plan. Pickati, you said that Dolls usually attack every week or so right?”

“Yeah, usually on a weekend too for some reason. I try not to question it, makes it more convenient for us anyway,”

“You’ll just have to talk to them then. We’ll work on a plan for that another day. For now, I think you need some sleep, and I need to squeeze in a bit more infusing training,” I said as I got up from the bed and went to remove Melodia from my room.

“What, come on I can stay up a bit more,”

I froze at her words. I looked at her giggling visage, and I knew full well what she knew what she was doing.

“Don’t you dare,’ I said intensely. “Turn me into Mom in this conversation,”

“Come on just a few more minutes,” She said with a laugh. I pouted at her before letting out English-sounding snort.

“Right then love,” I said in my bad on purpose English accent as I grabbed Melodia and picked her up in my arms. “Don’t really care where you go. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here,” I told her as I walked to the door and set my sister down in the hallway outside my room.

I sat back down with a sigh as Pickati came down from the dresser and landed next to me. “Nice jump,”

“Thank you. I have to say it’s rare to see you mess with your sister like that,”

“She knows I don’t like it when things make me feel old,” I grumbled as I eyed a certain object in front of the bed. “Hey Pickati, quick question,”

“Fire away,”

“In your honest opinion, how much progress can I actually make with infusing in the little time we have until I have to pass out for the night?”

“Very little,” He admitted.

“Good because, I feel like irresponsibly goofing off a little,” I said as I walked over, turned on the TV and game console and grabbed two controllers. “You ever play a fighting game?”

“No, but I’ve seen you and Melodia play them often enough that I get the concept,” He said as I turned the sound down a bit so that it wouldn’t bother anyone.

“Well, time to find out how good you are,” I told him as I started the game up.

The answer to that turned out to be good, very good.

I went to bed in a daze. I woke up and ate breakfast in a daze. I went to school and spent the day in a daze. And when I walked home and came in through the door, I was in a daze.

I walked up to Pickati’s plushie form as it laid on the table. I stroke his head and leaned in close.

“Tell me your secrets,” I told the small furry animal that destroyed me at Skullgirls last night.

I sighed and backed off as Pickati stayed silent. With my Mom and Dad around, it was probably too risky to be out and about.

Speaking of my family…

“Hey Mom, Dad, have you seen Melodia?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen. “I haven’t seen here since this morning,”

“Your sister called and said that she was going to stop by the library on the way back. She should be back in a bit,” Dad explained.

The library? And alone too? Why was she there?

Well, what was the worst it could have been? I sat down on the couch in the living room and decided to just ask her about it when I saw her.

Or maybe not with the look on her face as she slammed the front door shut.

“You okay?” Melodia just looked at me. “Okay, dumb question. What happened?”

“I have annoying homework, I’d rather not talk about it,” She grumbled as she dragged herself upstairs.

I had seen her like this before, angry at a tricky bit of homework. In cases like this, it was best to just let her be until she asked for help. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to work on my own stuff. I wanted to finish this quick so that I could get back to infusing training.

The next day went by without much fuss. At least, until Melodia came in through the front door with the widest smile that I had ever seen her wear.

“I made a friend!” She yelled as she ran up to me and launched herself at me.

“You made a friend?” I asked as she hugged me tightly.

“Yes, I, did!” She said tightening the hug with every word. “Yesterday they assigned us all two-person projects and I made friends with the person who I got grouped with!”

“Oh, so that’s why you’ve been to the library today and yesterday,” I said as I patted her head. Mom and Dad walked into the living room, attracted to all the noise we were making.

“Mama, Papa,” Melodia head snapped towards the two before they could say a word. She detached herself from me and launched herself at them. One quick explanation later and both of them were laughing and hugging her.

“His name is Ray,” She explained as we all ate dinner that night. “The teacher made us partners for our history project. We didn’t get that much done in class so he suggested going to the library. At first I was all frozen, but today I managed to talk to him a little and tell him about my problem. He was cool with it and agreed to do most of the talking for now,”

“So it’s a boy?” Dad said in that typical suspicious tone.

“Don’t you dare scare away the first friend I’ve had in years,” She said with a glare. “Also it’s not like that, trust me,”

“Let it be Julian,” My Mom said as Dad groaned and sat back.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Melodia said as she took a sip from her cup. “Can Enrique and I go somewhere after school tomorrow?”

“Where are you going?” Mom asked as glanced at me.

“A friend at school told me about this café on Market Street,” I gave her the address and assured her that we wouldn’t stay out too late.

After a little talking, we had permission to go.

Of course, if my parents knew we were going there to talk to a group of magi… Well, I think she would have given us a different answer.

Melodia and I met up at the corner of Market Street the next day.

“You ready to do this I asked her. She just nodded as Pickati popped out of her bag and nodded as well. I took a deep breath and the three of us approached the café.


	9. The Association

The café itself was pretty nice. A little place between a proper restaurant and a kid’s karate dojo. The outside was all dressed up in brown and green. We walked in and were welcomed by the barista.

“Hello there. I think I’m supposed to say ‘book fair’ right?”

The barista nodded and stepped from behind the counter. She walked over to the back wall and led us through a door with a smile.

We walked up the stairs and soon came to a stop outside a plain door marked with a number three.

“The room has a copy of our menu and a line that connects to downstairs. Just give us a call if you want anything,” She explained before knocking on the door, and I could hear a shuffling from inside. The door opened a smidge to reveal a friendly looking girl around my age.

“Hey there Mary is our guest here…” She trailed off as she spotted the two of us. “Didn’t expect you to bring someone else,”

She sounded more confused than angry, so I guess I was in the clear.

“Yeah, I have a reason,” I explained, which must have enough been for her because she just shrugged.

“Alright then, come in,” She said as the barista waved and walked away.

We walked in and found ourselves in a decently sized room. On the left side of the room was a long table. On the other side of the room, there were two tables with booths. On one of those tables, were two other people sitting down glaring at each other.

Based on the messy hair and the large bag next to them, I felt like I could safely assume that the one facing away from me was Marvin. Facing the door was a brown-haired girl wearing a red blouse with shiny blue earrings.

“Hey the new guy is here, and he brought a guest,” The girl who let us in announced loudly to the other two. She was a short haired blond wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. Sometimes, when her hair moved, I could see a white streak in her hair.

I had the sudden realization that everyone here was around my age.

“Wait, guests?” Both of the people sitting in the booth said as their heads snapped towards us.

“He brought his little sister…” The brown haired girl said, sounding like she couldn’t believe herself.

“Hello there I’m Enrique, and this is Melodia,” I introduced the two of us as the blond girl showed us to the booth.

“I’m Tina,” The blond said as we took our seats. “This here is Clancy and you already met Marvin,”

“Charmed,” Clancy said as she looked at both of us like we disgusted her.

“Why did you bring your sister,” Marvin said as he leaned back. “I brought you here so that we could discuss our mutual situation,”

“Well, what if my sister was in a similar situation,”

“Then that would change some things,” He said as his hand started twitching.

“So… why exactly are we all talking around magic again?” Tina said as held her hand out. Sparks of electricity appeared at her fingertips and jumped around her hand. “We established this little group for a reason,”

“Yeah about that,” I said as I raised my hand. “Just what is this group exactly? All I was told was to come here on Thursday,”

Tina’s expression changed into a glare as she looked at Marvin.

“You didn’t tell him anything?”

“I figured that you would want to, you’re the one who started this whole thing anyway,” Marvin explained as he passed Melodia and I the menu to the café.

“Okay fine,” Tina said with a sigh before giving us a smile. “Enrique, Melodia, welcome to the North Palm High School Magi Association,”

There was only one real response to those words.

“Our school has a Magi Association?”

“Well, not official of course. That’s why we’re meeting in a private room upstairs from a café and not a classroom,

“So what do you guys do exactly?” I said as Melodia tugged at my shoulder discreetly. I glanced over and saw that she had her finger on a hot cholate with whipped cream. “Also mind if we order something real quick?”

“Go right ahead,” She told me as I got up. I called the line and asked for Melodia’s hot chocolate and got a normal coffee for myself. Tina went back to explaining before I even got back to the table.

“Well, I mostly made this in an attempt to get Marvin and Clancy here to get along,” She said with a laugh as said magi glared at each other for a moment before huffing and looking away. “Other than that we mostly just hang out and talk magic a bit,”

“We have a fourth member, but she’s out of town at the moment,” Clancy chimed in before suddenly narrowing her eyes at her hands. She leaned in and started inspecting her painted nails.

“And here I was expecting some sort of big shadowy organization,” I said as I let out a sigh that I hadn’t known I was keeping in.

“Big organization? Just how little do you know about the world of magic anyway?” Marvin said in an annoyed tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me, are you aware of what magi call The Starving Time?”

“No, no I don’t,” I said honestly.

“Why is the more I learn about you, the less sense you make?” Marvin complained to me, to which I just shrugged.

“To make a long and complicated story short,” Tina cut in suddenly looking serious. “A few hundred years ago, magic started to decline worldwide. Fewer children were suddenly born with the ability to learn magic and those that did had reduced stores compared to what came before. For a while, it looked like magic was going to get snuffed out completely,”

“That’s when kids like us changed everything,” Marvin cut in. “Ours is the first generation in over three hundred years to not only have more magic then the generation before but to be in a position to expand the scope of magic beyond what it was,”

Clancy seemed to shift a bit at those words but said nothing. The room fell silent as I processed those words. Know I knew why magic was so rare.

We all jumped a bit at the sudden knock on the door.

“Those must be your drinks,” Marvin noted. I passed Melodia the money for the drinks and she went over and got the door. She came back a little while later with our drinks.

“Well that’s enough of the heavy stuff,” Tina said as I tried my coffee. “So come on, what kind of magic do you two use? You don’t have to tell us more than your base concept,”

“Well I only just started learning about magic a few days ago so I’m still working on infusing my magic with its first concept,” I glanced down at Melodia who was enjoying her hot chocolate. I bumped her shoulder softly to see if I could get her to speak a bit.

“Gravity magic,” She said plainly.

“Oh that’s a rare one form what I’ve been told,” Tina said as she leaned in a bit too close for Melodia’s taste. “My base concept is charge,” She explained as I remembered her trick with the sparks.

“Control,” Marvin said as the zipper on his bag opened itself. The head of a plain doll popped its head out from the bag. His hand shifted a bit as the doll moved, his control obvious.

“Blood,” Clancy said plainly, rounding out the… wait what?

“Blood?” Both Melodia and I asked in concern.

“Every time,” She said with a sigh. “Don’t worry, the Bloodturner family magic is based on ways to use our own blood. We’re not like your typical hemomancers,”

“You know, this happens often enough that maybe your family should just call it quits with the blood magic and find something else,” Marvin said with thousands times more emotion then I think I had seen him use the whole time I‘d known him. Too bad those emotions were spite and amusement. “Shouldn’t be too hard, you’re the last Bloodturner with magic left anyway,”

“My family won’t give up on over eight hundred years of research just because a few people have a bad opinion of us,” She explained before giving Marvin a tense look. “But maybe I can be convinced on the condition that you admit that your entire family is made of thieves, liars and murderers,”

“I think you’re listing off your family history, not mine,” Marvin said as the zipper on his bag opened further.

Suddenly Clancy dug her nails into her hand as Marvin’s bag almost burst open.

I blinked and the situation at the table had changed. A pair of foot-tall dolls held knives to Clancy’s neck. The blood on Clancy’s hand had flowed to her fingers, forming long claws that stopped just short of Marvin’s face.

“You want to finish this?” Clancy asked.

“Like our families haven’t been trying for over five hundred years,” Marvin said, ignoring the blood spikes an inch from his face.

Tina didn’t say a word as she grabbed both of arguing teenagers and shocked them with electricity.

“And you guys were doing so well with not trying to murder each other too,” She pouted as she took out a little notebook from her bag. She opened it up and I spotted the words ‘days since last Marvin/Clancy murder attempt.’

“I am beginning to regret bringing my sister to this,” I admitted as Melodia reached over me and silently poked the still steaming body of Marvin.

“Don’t worry, they’re getting better at this. In fact, when I started this club, they couldn’t go a day without sending each other death threats. Now they can go weeks without saying anything to each other,”

“I guess that’s better,” I said as I looked at Melodia who just shrugged. “By the way, mind I change the subject?”

“Sure,”

“How’d you guys find me anyway?”

“That was on me,” Marvin said as he came to and sat back up. I sensed an unfamiliar source of magic enter the school. Normally a magical presence like yours would be a bit tricky to detect. However, I’m used to working with small amounts of magic due to my own doll magic. When I figured out that it was you, I had one of my dolls shadow you for the day,”

“So was that what I felt then?”

“Felt,” Marvin’s eyebrow rose.

“Yeah, the whole day I felt a weird sensation in the back of my head,”

“You must be sensitive to magical surveillance then. It’s a rare trait from what I’ve read, but not unheard of,” He explained as I suddenly felt that sensation again. I took a look around the room and spotted a wooden doll in one of the rafters above us. It wore all dark blue and had huge eyes.

“You made a ninja doll to spy on people with?”

“It’s mostly meant for general surveillance,” He said as the doll dropped down from the rafter and landed in front of us. “I’m sorry about spying about you, but a magi starting at your age is rare… I thought I would be dealing with a much more powerful and experienced magic user. For example, the one who made the magic object in your bag,”

We all stopped in place.

“You’ve been able to sense him from the start haven’t you?” I asked as I noticed my bag start to move and shake around.

“He?” Marvin wondered before Pickati came out of my bag.

“You’re skilled for your age, young Magi.” He said as he floated above my head.

“What are you?” Tina asked.

“Who made you?” Marvin asked.

“Can you bleed?” Clancy asked.

One of these was not like the others.

“I beg your pardon?” Pickati asked as he slowly floated away from Clancy who was looking at him with hungry eyes.

“Oh come on, just a little drop, for… academic reasons,” She said even as the droll started to drip from her mouth. The somewhat reserved girl was gone, replaced by magi taking out an empty syringe and alcohol wipes. “You’ll barely feel a thing,”

“Melodia do the thing,” I said as Melodia got up and snapped her finger. Clancy dropped to the ground, her gravity boosted to the point that she couldn’t move.

“Don’t you touch him,” She said as the two of us stood in front of Pickati.

“Okay fine, fine, just let me up,” She relented as Melodia snapped her finger again. “Sorry about that, I get a little, excited at the idea of working with the blood of an unknown being,”

“More importantly, what is your friend anyway,” Marvin asked as he tried to hide his smile.

I looked at both Melodia and Pickati.

“Full disclosure?” I asked.

“Full disclosure,” Melodia added.

“Why not at this point. Full disclosure,” Pickati said even as he eyed the girl who was pretending to not look at him.

What followed was an explanation of everything. The spirit of destruction, the Dolls, Pickati training us, everything.

“I’m in,” Marvin said as soon as the explanation ended.

“In what?” Pickati asked.

“Helping you guys out against this spirit of destruction,”

“Oh thanks,” Melodia said before suddenly moving away as Marvin got an intense look on his face.

“How dare this trash spirit name its weapons after Dolls. I’ll show it who the better Doll user is,”

Well, it looked like he was motivated at least.

All five of us jumped as Tina suddenly rushed up to Melodia and took her by the hands. She had been silent since the start of the explanation, and now we were all watching her.

“Mahou shoujo…” She breathed as she looked at Melodia with sparkles in her eyes. “My life is complete now,”

“Excuse me?” Melodia asked, looking completely confused.

“Can you show me your transformation? Wait it’s not one of those weird modern ones that make you naked first right?”

“What?” Melodia snapped as she gave me a questioning look.

“You kind of just flashed a bright light and the new clothes were there,” Melodia claimed down at my explanation. She walked to the center of the room and held her arm out.

“Power of the stars, guide me through the deepest wells,” She called out before the room flashed white.

Tina was on my sister and squealing before any of us could say a thing.

“You are so cute! You even have a transformation phrase and everything,”

“Hey let go of me,” Melodia said, trying to sound angry but still laughing a bit despite herself.

I would have stepped in and helped, but it looked like Melodia was doing fine. I knew that she was strong enough in that form to break out if she really wanted to. Plus, she was laughing.

My sister didn’t laugh around strangers often.

I would let this play out a little longer. Plus, we had more allies against the dolls now.

That was good enough.


	10. Calm

“So Dad,”

“Yes Enrique,”

“Do you remember the last time that Melodia brought a friend over to the house?”

“No… not in particular no,”

I was sitting down on the couch while Dad cooked dinner. When we had come back from the North Palm High Magi Association, Melodia had hit us all with a surprise.

She had asked if Ray could come over Friday afternoon to work on their project. Apparently, she hadn’t wanted to head to the library today. When we had asked her why she had gotten a nervous look on her face.

So of course, it fell to me to make sure that Dad behaved and didn’t engage in stereotypical Dad things.

“Do not mess this up for her. You know how hard it must have been for her to ask someone over. Plus, you know that if this kid was bad news, Melodia would have handled this herself,”

“I guess you’re right,” He admitted as we both heard a door open.

“I’m home,” I head Melodia say as she walked into the living room with someone right behind her.

Ray was a nice looking kid with friendly green eyes and blond curly hair. He didn’t look like much of a trouble maker so I let myself relax a bit.

“Sit down on the couch and start getting the stuff for the project out. I’ll grab us some snacks and stuff,” She commanded as she led Ray to the couch and made him sit down.

“So you’re Ray,” I said to the kid as he took stuff out from his bag. As I saw him handle the books, I couldn’t help but feel just a bit nosy. “So what kind of project are you two working on anyway?”

“Well, Mels said not to tell you until we were sure we needed your help,” He explained as I started getting a feeling to just what Melodia had been assigned.

“I’m back,” Melodia said as she walked back with a plate of chips, two cups, and a soda bottle. She set everything on the small table in the center of the room and then dragged the table towards to where Ray was sitting.

Well, that was interesting, only a little while ago, that table would have been way too heavy for her to move that easily. When had she gotten so strong? That physical training she was doing along with the magic training must have been…

Was she using her magic to make the table lighter?

I gapped at the audacious use of magic. Did she do this often? Had she used it in my presence before? Had my sister been casting spells around me since she started her training?

“I think I’m going to let you guys to your work,” I said as I gathered my stuff. “I’ll be in my room working on this and other stuff. Call me if you need to,”

I took my leave and headed upstairs.

I reached my room and called for Pickati. The little flying fox immediately jumped down from that one spot on top of my dresser that he seemed to have claimed as his own.

“How easy would it be for Melodia to cast spells around someone who didn’t know about magic without being noticed?”

Pickati sighed and placed his paw on his face. “She lowered the weight of something to make it easier to carry, didn’t she?” He sounded like he already knew the answer.

“I think she lowered the weight of the table to make it easier to move around,”

“Well, as long as she didn’t do something like lifting a car with one hand, then a mundane human should be unable to notice this,”

“Does she…?”

“Do this often, almost constantly. Have you ever tried to pick up her backpack?”

“She lowered the weight of her… okay, that one is understandable. Those things can get heavy,” I said as I dropped my own bag on my bed for effect. The loud thud noise it made only reinforced the point. “I don’t have much left. Give me about an hour or so and I should be ready to work on my infusing,”

“Good, with any luck you’ll be able to get it done today,” He said hopefully.

With that little bit of encouragement, I got to work and got it done in forty-five minutes.

“Alright let’s do this,” I said as I plopped myself on the bed and sat down in a lotus position as the world around me faded away.

My magic came to be like an old friend at this point. While I might not have had a lot of it, the little I did have was always ready and willing when called upon.

I called forth the concept of gravity. Images of gravity acting upon the world flashed through my head as a purple and black ball appeared in front of me. Without hesitating, I allowed my magic to consume it whole before swirling around.

By the time it was over, I was surrounded in a purple and black light, not a speck of blue in sight.

I opened my eyes in triumph. I looked at Pickati who flew over to me. He put his paw on me and gave me a matching smile.

“You did it, a perfectly blended batch of gravity magic ready to go,” He said as I jumped out of bed and started doing a victory dance. Pickati laughed and swirled around me as I danced, matching my movements.

“Alright, now for the next part right?” I said as the dance came to a stop. Pickati came to a stop as well and gave me a quick nod.

“Now you have to apply the concepts of self, internal self, and stability in that order. You remember how to do that?”

“Yep, you always tell each time before we start,” I said before closing my eyes again.

Unlike infusing that dealt with combining a concept with my magic, applying was much simpler. A mental image of myself appeared in my head. It took the form of a copy of me. My magic consumed it but didn’t swirl. Then I did the same with the concepts of internal self and stability. I opened my eyes and felt a new sensation. It felt like I had… something in my head. Something that was ready to go at my command.

Pickati said that this would be what a charged spell would feel like. I controlled my breath as he flew over to inspect the spell.

“Looks like you have the self and inner-self concepts down. Stability is a bit off though. You focused more on the balance aspect of stability than the unchanging one. As is, this spell would either cause all of your organs to implode inward or explode outward, fifty-fifty really,”

He didn’t have to say more. I let go of the spell and let it dissolve.

“Well that was close,” I said in relief as the last of the spell cleared. “By the way, not to question your methods but mind if I ask a question,”

“There are no dumb questions,” Pickati landed on the bed next to me and sat down like a fox would. “However there are annoying questions that do nothing but waste time. Lucky for you, I answer those too,”

“How thoughtful,” I said as I nodded to his sage-like generosity and patience. “I wanted to know why this spell is the first one I’m supposed to learn. I imagined that making an object lighter would be easier. Why is it that my bodies’ the first thing I’m altering?”

“Well, that’s… I never went over the hierarchy of mystical targeting complexity with you, did I?” Well those were certainly… words. “Tell me, did you find the concepts of self and inner self somewhat easy compared to gravity and stability?”

“Yeah, I got them on my first try after all,” I said as I realized that I had indeed gotten both down pretty quick.

“There is a certain hierarchy when it comes to spell targets. Casting magic on one’s self is by far the easiest thing to learn. From easiest to hardest, the targets are self, external area, touched object, object at range, touched person, person at range,”

“So stuff, like pointing at a person and having them just fall over dead, is pretty advanced then,” I reasoned.

“That’s right. If you ever meet someone like that, your best bet is to just flee,”

“Got it,” I said as I leaned back on the wall. “So, I’m ready to try that spell again,”

I kept practicing the spell until I heard someone knock on my door.

“Enrique,” I head Melodia say from the other side of the door. “It’s time for dinner,”

“Got it, I’ll be right there,” I called back as I dissolved the spell. I waited for her footsteps to fade away a bit before leaning over to Pickati.

“Another question?” He glanced up at me.

“If Ray was in any way connected to magic, you would let us know right?”

“After that this whole thing with the magi at your school? Everyone that you two interact with is going to be checked for magic. Passive scanning isn’t going to cut it anymore,” He explained before I turned to head down for dinner. I had my hand on the doorknob when I had a sudden thought?

“Don’t… you need to eat?”

I knew Pickati could eat… but unless Melodia and I went out of our way to give him something I had never seen the little fox wat anything.

“Not really. I can eat but I mostly do it to consume things that taste good. I could go a thousand years without eating and be just fine,” He explained.

I left the room, my guilt absolved.

Wait was Pickati immortal?

I stopped mid-step on the staircase as the thought echoed in my head. I let out a sigh and shrugged. There were other things to worry about.

I went downstairs and noted in surprise that Ray was still here. Apparently, Mom had prodded him into staying for dinner. Dinner itself was pretty peaceful, and I got to see a small white child experience a Hispanic dinner for the first time.

“How is the rice this good?” He said as I bit back a laugh.

“Ray no offense, but I am never eating at your house,” Melodia said as she looked down at the normal forkful of rice in front of her.

Well, normal for her at least.

I smiled as the two bantered. It was nowhere near the back and forth that I had with her, but it was miles ahead of how she normally was with people she didn’t know well.

Dinner died down after a while until I was just kind of picking at my food. “Hey Mom, can I be excused? I feel full already,” I asked, the food on my plate not all the way done. She allowed it, and I placed the leftover food in a bowl for ‘later’.

I walked back upstairs and found Pickati playing on my game console.

“Huh, I forgot I had FF tactics downloaded on this thing,” I said as I placed the bowl on my desk. “You like the game?”

“The turn-based gameplay is strangely relaxing,” He said as I watched the buttons on the gamepad in front of him sink into the controller. “You brought more food up with you?”

“It’s for you,” I explained as I took a moment to smugly smile at his shocked expression. “I know you said that you don’t need to eat, but I figured you would want to taste my Mom’s cooking anyway,”

“Oh, thanks,” He said as he left the game and flew over to the bowl.

As it turned out, ice cream wasn’t the only thing he could eat via gravity manipulation.

He finished the food and we both sat down. He played while I mostly just provided commentary and a bit of back seat gaming.

“We got lucky with the North Palm High Magi association, didn’t we?” I asked as Pickati targeted one of the enemy units.

“We did. I still can’t believe that Tina and Marvin have both agreed to meet us for the next Doll battle,”

“So you have any clue what it was that Tina was talking about yesterday?” I asked as I remembered what Tina had said shortly before we had left. About how she had to go now that she finally had a way and a reason to finish Project Talos. She had also mentioned how unfair it was that she had no way to work on another project called the Trojan horse. “I know what the Trojan horse was, but what’s a Talos?”

“Well based on the Greek theme, it’s probably referring to a bronze giant that was shut down by removing a cork from the bottom of its foot,”

We spent the rest of the night gaming. It was nice to get in moments like this when you could. While we knew that it was soon, we still had no clue when the moment of the next Doll attack would be.

I was working on the stability part of my first spell the next day when the moment came.

“Stop the spell,” Pickati commanded and I did as I was told without a second thought. “Doll attack, get me a map of the town,” I grabbed a small map of the town meant for tourist and opened it up on my bed. I rushed out of my room to grab Melodia while Pickati worked on finding the Doll.

“Here,” He pointed to a pretty far away spot with his paw as Melodia and I entered the room.

“Normally when it’s this far out, I let the other three girls handle it,” She said as she cringed a bit. “But after what happened last week…”

“Say no more, meet me in the garage and tell Mom we’re going out,” I said as I sent the location to Tina and Marvin via text. They both said that they’d be able to make it.

I put on my jacket as I grabbed the smaller one that didn’t fit me anymore. Melodia walked into through the door of the garage and I tossed it at her. She put it on and then we both put on helmets.

“You ready for this?” I asked her as Pickati curled himself in my jacket.

“Let’s do this,” She fired back as the garage door opened.

I revved the engine and soon we were on our way, riding towards the battle on my Uncle Carlos’ old motorcycle.


	11. The storm

We were the first to arrive at the site. The dark goop was still just barely swirling, which meant we had time.

“I hate fighting in places like this, I always feel like I’m not supposed to be here,” Melodia said as I set the bike. I took off my helmet and found myself agreeing with her.

We were in an abandoned construction yard next to the train station. I think it was meant to be a mall or something, but I guess the money had dried up at some point.

There wasn’t even a building, just an open pit that would have been the foundation and shipping containers and iron rods scattered around everywhere.

“So how is this going to go down?” I asked as I heard a trio of footsteps behind us. We both turned around to the trio of Ana, Rashell, and Claire.

“You,” Ana said as she glared at Melodia who started looking like she was about to freeze. I let out a sigh at the exchange, we were starting with this nonsense? “You have a lot of nerve showing up here after what you did on Thursday,”

“Yeah, you big meanie,” Rashell tacked on as she jumped in front of Ana.

“Is that a motorcycle?” Claire asked, ignoring the rest of the conversation.

“Belongs to an uncle of ours actually,” I explained as I started putting a bit of distance between it and the Doll’s spawn point. “It’s how we got here so fast,”

“Wait, who the heck are you?” Ana said as she pointed at me with a freaked out look on her face.

“This is girl’s business, get out,” Rashell said in a bratty voice.

“You guys rode in a motorcycle…” Claire said as she ignored everything around her and just kept looking at the old bike.

“In order…” I said as I gave the girls a smug grin. “I’m Melodia’s brother, no, and heck yeah we did,”

“Well get out,” Ana said as she glared at me. Maybe that glare was more effective when she was using it on another girl her age, but it did nothing for me. “We have important stuff to take care off and people like you shouldn’t be around for it,”

Now it wasn’t often that I got the temptation to mess around as an older brother would. Melodia was always too introverted for me to feel comfortable taking the teasing too far. These girls, on the other hand, they were fair game.

Plus the one in pink had spent way too long messing with my sister so it was time for some payback.

“Gasp,” I actually said the word gasp instead of gasping for the added effect. “Are you three girls going to… buy drugs?” I wasn’t sure how I kept up the faux-outraged expression as all three of them started staring at me dumbfounded.

“Why?” Melodia whispered to me, probably unable to believe what she was seeing.

“To think that three upstanding young girls who share classes with my sister could fall so low. Truly how fall society has fallen,”

Before the girls could say anything, we were interrupted by a new voice coming from the entrance to the yard. “Oh hey, we arrived in time,”

“Oh Melodia, looks like Tina is here… and she brought Marvin,” I said as Tina approached us with a goofy grin on her face… next to Marvin who was wearing a big black cloak with what looked like a big wooden box on his back.

“Greetings,” He said as he set the box down. It hit the ground with a dull thud.

“Wasn’t that heavy?” I asked as he knelt down and brushed away a bit of dust that was on top of the box.

“Not in particular, no. In fact, I bet that I could carry two of these things,” He said with a weird smile that creeped me out a little.

“Can’t believe it only took you a day to get this thing together,” Tina said as she dug her hand into the large jacket she was wearing.

“Who are you people,” Ana asked, starting to look a bit overwhelmed.

“Oh, we’re…”

“I see that Break failed to report the accurate number of vermin that had been causing him trouble,”

We all turned around and saw a strange adult man sitting on one of the shipping containers. He wore an old military uniform that looked like they would better fit a World War One documentary then our current surroundings. His blond hair was long and fell down his back. The only thing that gave away his supernatural origin were his glowing, gold-colored eyes.

“The Doll is just about ready. Hopefully, this will cull the herd a bit,” He said, sounding disinterested in all this, like all of this was beneath him.

“Great, another captain,” Ana moaned.

“Looks like we aren’t just dealing with Break now,” Rashell said as she started stretching her hand.

“What are we going to do with these three though?” Claire said as she glanced at the three teenagers here.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Marvin cut in as he stood up and glared at the man sitting on the container. “Do your little transformation and deal with that fake-doll. This one is mine,”

“Wait how do you know… you?” Ana turned to Melodia and looked at her accusingly. “You told the adults about magic?”

“Worry later, fight now,” She managed out before pointing at the swirling mist in front of them. It was much thicker now, the doll was almost out.

The four girls transformed and I could almost feel the intense look Tina was giving them.

“Save it,” I told her as I watched the black swirl.

A lone shape emerged from the swirl.

“So small,” Claire commented, and with good reason. The Doll was small compared to the land sharks and armored lizards that I had seen, roughly my size in fact. It had a near humanoid appearance, looking more like a man covered in a chitin exoskeleton than a monster. The exception were its limbs, which were far too long and slender to pass for human. It had no face, instead sporting a featureless plate of black chitin.

“This thing is puny,” Rashell boasted as she jumped from side to side and shadowboxed.

“Careful, we have no idea what it can…” Ana never got a chance to finish her words as the Doll exploded into action. One second it was standing dead-still, the next it was in Rashell’s face. I could barely see the punch she delivered to the girl’s stomach.

“Rashell!” Ana and Clair both yelled as their friend was sent flying back towards the foundation pit. The doll ran after her and swung again. She managed to block the hit, but was still pushed back and forced to jump into the pit.

The other two girls ran after the Doll. Melodia started to go as well before remembering about the three of us.

“Go, we can handle things here,” Tina said before Melodia nodded. She shifted her gravity and soon she was falling horizontally towards the pit.

“Well,” The man in the uniform said as he stood up. A sword materialized in his hand which he balanced on his shoulder. “I guess I should go and make sure that these pests are dealt with correctly,”

“Don’t you dare move monster, your battle is with me!” Marvin announced as glared at the man. At some point, he must have climbed on top of the box because he was standing right on top of it with his arms crossed.

“And who are you human, to challenge the spirit of destruction’s third child, Shatter?”

“My name is Martin Mezavon, Magi of the Mezavon line and your exterminator,” He said as uncrossed his arms.

“How amusing,” Shatter said with a patronizing grin. “And tell me Magi, what kind of magic will you use to kill me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to use the same art that you and your family have twisted beyond all recognition,” He said as the doors of the box exploded outwards. Small shapes flew through the air, rushing towards Shatter.

Shatter brought up his sword to block the small doll that was only a split second from stabbing him with two large knives. He batted it away as two more dolls appeared on either side of him. He ducked underneath the four knives that swung over him.

“Dolls’?” He asked as he jumped away from another Doll that had traded away their two knives for a sword that was bigger than its wielder. While Shatter was still mid-air another knife-wielding doll ran up to him and opened their mouth. A cloud of green gas shot out and covered Shatter, leaving him coughing.

A new doll ran from out of the box. This one looked a bit crude like Marvin hadn’t spent too much time working on it. I wondered for a moment why this particular doll was so different from the rest of the well-crafted ones.

When the doll ran up to a coughing Shatter and grabbed onto his leg, I saw why.

The outer shell of the doll glowed yellow for a moment before suddenly exploding. The flames instantly ignited the gas, setting Shatter on fire.

It would have been nice to think that this was all we had to do to get rid of Shatter. Of course, I knew full well that this was going to be nowhere near enough.

“Is that all you have?” Shatter said with a glare as he emerged from the flames. He looked a bit scorched, and parts of his uniform were burnt off, but he was alive. If that was all Marvin had, we were in a sticky situation.

“Not even close,” Marvin announced as a cracking sound rang out through the night. Shatter moved faster than humanly possible as something hit his arm. He grunted as his left arm fell limp at his side. The arm had a large hole in it that was leaking black goo. There were three more cracking sounds and then something impacted Shatter, leaving three more holes on different sides of his torso.

“Looks like those railguns I prepared came in handy after all,” Tina said as she glanced over at the second floor of the empty train station.

“You guys brought snipers?” I asked, feeling as though this was getting a little out of hand.

“Not exactly,” She said as she looked away from me.

“Then who’s firing the guns?” I asked before looking back at the fight.

A squad of dolls rushed Shatter. His movements were sluggish, his flesh not yet fully recovered from the shots. He jumped back and brought up his sword to block the dolls attack. To both his and my confusion, the dolls stopped just short of him.

The doll's hand’s opened up to show tubes. Three of the dolls opened fire, lighting Shatter up with a hail of bullets. The two other Dolls instead released streams of flames at the monster.

Shatter yelled as the fire, both the gun kind and the literal kind, subsided. He stopped and was about to say something when there were four more cracking sounds.

Shatter tensed for a second and then he had no head. No left arm either, and there appeared to be large holes in his stomach.

As I watched Marvin fight, I suddenly remembered something he said when he got here.

“Not in particular, no. In fact, I bet that I could carry two of these things,”

He had. He had brought two. Those weren’t human snipers, they were probably doll snipers.

His head recovered first.

“You’re going to regret this mortal,” He snarled as his hair grew back and his arm repaired itself.

“I haven’t even started to show you what I can do monster,” Marvin said as a pike-wielding doll suddenly rushed up from behind shatter intending to skewer him.

Shatter noticed and moved out of the way. He swung his sword, slicing the doll in two. A mistake to be sure, because the doll suddenly exploded, once again bathing him in fire.

Well, it looked like Marvin had this fight handled, I wondered how Melodia was doing.

Meloida POV

I rushed after the doll and the rest of the girls as they went down into the pit. Rashell had already recovered as the three girls stood with their backs to each other, the Doll dashing around them in a circle. Every once in a while, the doll would stop to deliver a savage looking blow to one of them.

With each blow, they would stumble back only for the other two to catch her. By the time they were back in formation, the Doll was ready and waiting to launch another attack. It was toying with them, and I didn’t like it one bit.

I had to help out with this one.

I chose the spot in the dolls path closest to me. I brought my magic forth and infused it with gravity.

I added the concepts of a meter-sized circle, multiply, sixty times, downwards, duration, one second, and vanish, in that order. Even with the power of the stars coursing through me, sixty times was my absolute limit. I grimaced as I felt a huge chunk of my magic fire off. I would get it back soon enough, but for now, I was a little limited in my options.

It was worth it though, to see the Doll crash to the floor as it jumped over my trap. I jumped over the Doll and readied a new spell.

Infuse gravity, my left shoe, multiply, four times.

I brought down my foot in an axe kick right onto the Dolls head.

…

…

PAIN!

I bounced off the Doll’s head and jumped back. Before I knew it, I had both of my hands rubbing my heel. It felt like I had just kicked a metal ball with my foot.

Which I guess I just did didn’t I?

“Okay new plan,” I said as I got ready for a Gravity Crush. One powerful strike was all I needed to end this.

A powerful strike that I wasn’t going to get if the metal doll leaped at me with its arms reared back.

I brought my arms up to block the hit. I already knew that it was going to hurt from my kick. I had no clue how right I was.

The Doll’s arms slammed into me, sending me flying back towards the wall of the pit. I let out a yelp of pain as I bounced off and hit the floor.

I glanced up and saw a metal foot about to stomp my face in.

I rolled to the side as the foot came down on the ground where my face had been. I scrambled to get myself up as the Doll approached me again. He punched forward with a swift jab. I knew what to do this time. I batted the jab away, redirecting the hit instead of blocking it head on.

I almost punched it back with a jab of my own, until the memory of the kick killed the idea stone dead. I grit my teeth and waited for the next hit. Another jab with the opposite arm that I redirected as well. Next came another jab, followed by a hook and then a quick kick. I redirected each one in what felt like the world’s most demented and painful rhythm game.

Well, hopefully, this was at least giving the other girls a chance to recover and counter-attack. I glanced over, expecting to see them with their attacks ready.

“Why are you just standing there?” I yelled at them as they stood there slack-jawed. A mistake on my part, one that the Doll was ready to take advantage of. It planted its foot and hit me with the best spin kick it could muster. I felt all of the air in my lungs get forced out as its foot dug into my chest.

The worlds slowed down and then sped up as I was sent flying. I hit the wall again, but this time there was no yelp of pain as I tried to force the air back into my lungs.

I gasped as my heart started to beat out of my chest. I couldn’t get air into my lungs, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t…

I froze as the Doll ran up to me, looking ready to finish me off. It reared back its arm as I tried to force myself to move. But no matter what I tried, my body wouldn’t respond.

“Prism shield!”

The doll hit the wall of shining lights with a smack, bouncing back and landing away from me.

“Air bullet,”

A shot of wind hit the Doll with a clang, not doing any damage, but knocking it away a bit.

Claire knelt next to me and took my hands.

“Look at me. Breath in, breath out,” She said before taking in and letting out a deep breath. Soon I was matching her breathing, and I could feel air in my lungs again. “Are you okay?”

I nodded as I got to my feet. I still couldn’t speak, better to focus on my breathing until…

I pushed Claire and then fell back as the Doll flew past the spot where we had both been standing. The Doll’s arm just barely missed me, I could feel the air breeze past me.

“It never lets up!” Ana said as the Doll jumped at her and started swinging at her. “Prism shield!”

“Should I use a freezing mist?” Claire asked as Ana layered her shields to keep the Doll away from her. Rashell stood away from all of us, her fingers trained on the Doll waiting for a clear shot.

“It’s too fast, you would have to cover the whole pit to get it in the mist. That would freeze us too.” I said as I cringed at the Doll’s movements. It never stayed in one spot for too long, even when attacking a single target. I couldn’t use gravity crush without risking an ally.

I didn’t get along with Ana, but I didn’t want to kill her.

“So what do we do?”

Was… was she asking me? Why was she asking me? I knew how to use my magic in ways that would fit my fighting style. How was I supposed to tell them how to use their magic?

Well, I had to try something at least.

“Do you have any other spells?”

“No, those four spells are all we have,” She said as I could feel our options shrink. There had to be a way out of this, I just had to think.

The Doll, its exoskeleton, I was pretty sure it was actual metal. Polished and smoothed to the point of looking organic, but still metal.

Maybe if we could freeze the metal, and then heat it up…

That was it.

“Stall, I need to get one of the people I brought,” I told Claire as I cast a spell on myself to lower my gravity.

“Wait, do you have a plan?” Claire asked as I jumped out of the pit. I turned back and nodded only to spot the Doll lunge at me.

“Air bullet!” I heard as a blast of air hit the Doll. It was knocked off course and soon it was back in the pit.

I landed on the outside of the pit and why where they’re explosions everywhere? And why was the monster dude with the long hair shirtless now?

A trio of dolls flew up to him, two of them landed their blows, but the third was sliced in two. That doll then exploded, bathing the monster in fire.

Well, that explained where the shirt went.

I shook my head and ran towards Tina, who I needed to see, Enrique, who was just standing there, and Marvin who was… was he standing on a box?

“Melodia?” My bother asked as I came to a stop in front of Tina.

“Can you heat up a person size chunk of metal really quickly?” I asked the electric magi.

“No, but I’m carrying around something that can,” She said as she took out something from her pocket and handed it to me. It looked like a weird gun, but instead of a barrel, it had some sort of metal coil. “When you’re ready to fire, hit this little switch to turn of the safety. Since you want to melt metal, you’re going to want to set it to the max setting,”

The explanation done, I thanked her and ran back to the pit. I smiled as I heard Enrique ask Tina if she ‘had just given his little sister a gun,’

I jumped back down the pit, weapon in hand. I had the first step done and now I had to find a way to immobilize it for the plan to work.

Hopefully, the other three girls were managing to put up a fight.

“Here it comes,”

“No, now it’s over here,”

“Where the heck is she?”

I cringed as the Doll bounced from girl to girl, dealing a blow before switching targets.

Okay, so I was going to have to figure out this next part myself. Need something heavy to…

I knew just the thing.

“Hey, you made it why are you leaving again!” Ana yelled as I jumped out of the pit and ran to the nearest shipping container. I lowered its weight until it was near weightless. I dragged it over to the pit and held it over my head with one hand.

“Hey Metal boy!” I yelled at the doll to get its attention. It stopped its attacks and faced upwards at me. It jumped at me, only for me to end the spell keeping the container weightless. As it started to fall, I hit it with another spell that would quadruple its weight.

The doll was crushed underneath the container.

“Everybody out!” I yelled at the other three girls before jumping out of the pit. I turned back and saw that they had in fact followed after me.

“That’s not going to keep it there for long,” Ana said as she watched the container slightly shift. “Do you have more or what?”

Oh no, here it was. Ana was glaring right at me and now they were all looking at me and the adrenaline was gone and my mouth wasn’t moving and…

I yelped as I felt someone slap my back.

“I know that as your brother I should probably not pressure you too much in front of your peers and stuff,” Enrique said as he looked down into the pit. “But right now you really need to get over your fear of talking to people and tell them the rest of the plan,”

He was right. I took a deep breath and looked Claire right in the eye.

“You… need… to… freeze… a lot,” I said as I glanced over at my brother for encouragement. He gave me a quick thumbs up and I looked back at Claire. “Make it… more ice then… metal,”

Claire nodded and stood at the edge of the pit and held her hand out.

“Freezing mist,” She said as the mist started to fill the pit. Even with just one, I could see the container start to slow. But it wasn’t enough, it needed more.

I had Claire fire off two more freeing mists into the pit. By the time she was done, the mist was thick enough that I could barely see the container. The most I could spot was a small corner of the light blue container.

The color choice might not have been the best.

But it was enough. I saw the container shift and turn over.

The Doll didn’t come leaping out of the pit like we knew he could. Instead, it slowly crawled on top of the container and looked up at us. Its movements were sluggish, its body covered in ice and its skin was tinted blue. I looked it right in the face as I clicked the safety off of the weapon that Tina gave me. I set the settings to max and aimed.

I breathed out as I squeezed the trigger.

There was a flash and then I was holding a bolt of lightning.

The bolt struck the Doll causing it to shatter. I set the gun to the side and pointed my finger into the pit.

“Gravity Crush!” I yelled as the black hole consumed the pieces of the doll, most of the mist, and the container.

I opened my mouth to express my relief that it was all over when a sudden explosion behind us almost knocked us all off our feet.

“What was that?” Rashell said as we all steadied ourselves.

“Looks like Marvin is giving that Shatter guy a tough time. You girls should help out a bit before he gets overwhelmed though,”

I jumped as Tina suddenly appeared next to me.

“When did you?”

“Don’t worry about that, mind if I have my shock-bolt back?”

I handed her back her lighting gun.

Tina and Enrique hanged back as the four of us ran forward to where Marvin was.

“Is that piece of garbage that dares calls itself a doll dealt with?” Marvin asked as one of his dolls suddenly rushed up to him and stopped right in front of him. A split-second later, there was a sword sticking out of the doll.

“Yeah, how about you,” I asked as I locked eyes with the monster standing away from us, Shatter I think Tina called him.

“I’ve been able to slow him down, but nothing I have on me does enough to kill him,” He said four cracking sounds filled the air.

Shatter’s eyes went wide as he backflipped away from us and three holes appeared in the ground where he had been standing.

It wasn’t enough, the fourth hit got him right in the leg mid-backflip. He collapsed on the ground, bringing himself up to one knee.

“Five of you… this has gotten out of hand,” He said as watched the five of us. “You have made a great enemy today mortal, one that you will live to regret making,”

He sneered at us as the floor below him started to glow, the first sign that he was about to teleport away.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Rashell cried out as she aimed with her fingers. “Air Bullet!”

The blast of air flew right at Shatter, who phased out of reality as the shot hit him. He teleported away on his back and groaning in pain.

“Well,” Ana said as the four of us found ourselves sitting on the ground, dead tired. “I guess we won,”


	12. cafe talk

We all stood in a weird circle in the construction yard. Marvin sat on his box, Tina right next to him. Melodia and I stood next to each other, my sister trying to not look at anyone. The final group was the other three girls who were looking equally tired and confused.

“Where did you find these people?” Ana asked Melodia who started freeing up again.

“You… are… all… so… adorable!” Tina said as she jumped in front of the girls, saving my sister from having to engage in conversation.

Baby steps.

“Are you okay?” Ana asked, looking a little creeped out at Tina as she jumped in place and squeed.

“Oh my God, you all have different designs but they all have elements that go with each other and it fits together when you’re all together and…”

“Maybe we have other things to talk about first Tina,” Marvin said as one of his dolls slapped its hand over her mouth. It wasn’t enough to actually stop her from talking, but she did stop.

“Yeah you’re right but…” I said as I looked all around us. “Is this really the right place for this?”

“Enrique’s right,” Pickati said as he emerged from my jacket. “We should move this to a safer location. Is that café of yours closed at this time of night?”

The other three girls gasped as Pickati.

“She has one too?” Rashell said just as we heard the sound of three small objects come flying towards us.

“Good work girls. That’s another Doll taken care of and… who are all these people?”

“Hey there Melati, Sobeti, Vitati,” Pickati said as gave what I assumed where the other three guardians an empty smile. “It’s been awhile, especially since you three have made it so hard to contact you,”

The first of the guardians was a green and white hummingbird that floated around Rashell. The center one was a Pink and white-winged Ferret that landed on Ana. The last was the strangest one of them all. It was a small Pickati sized orca with blue where it should have had black. The mini orca floated in the air next to Claire.

All three of the Guardians looked a bit nervous. And while I had a good guess as to why I’d give them the chance to explain themselves in time.

“Actually, the café closes in a bit, but they should let us in. The rules are a bit different for people with long term rents on private rooms,”

“Yeah, but how are we all going to get there?” I asked as I glanced over to the motorcycle which had been left untouched by the fighting. It would take Melodia, Pickati and I, but that was it.

“We can all go in my van,” Tina said proudly as she held up her keys.

I guess that works.

“Wait, where are we all going?” Ana suddenly said, the conversation apparently moving too fast for her to handle.

“It sounds like they have some sort of base,” Claire explained to her friend. “We should go with them. Since… you know,”

I wondered just what it was that Rashell and Ana knew because they agreed to come to the café as soon as Claire said that. Soon, we had all set out on either a motorcycle or van.

We arrived at the café in good time. Just as Marvin said, the café was closed but we were allowed upstairs into the private room anyway.

We all sat down as Tina and Marvin did the lion’s share of the explaining. The fact that other magi existed was eye-opening for the other girls. They had apparently been operating under the impression that the four of them were the only magic users around besides the spirit of destruction.

“So this is why you’re so much stronger than us,” Claire said even as Rashell and Ana protested. “You’ve had the help of other Magi to teach you the ropes. But in that case, why haven’t they helped out earlier?”

Claire looked at Melodia, expecting some sort of response. All she got was my sister freezing up before looking away from her.

“You know, the whole shy things make so many things make sense,” Ana said as Melodia shrunk back even further into her seat. I let out a sigh, as I found myself intervening.

“Sorry to say, but Melodia and I only meet these magi a few days ago,” I told them.

“Speaking of, don’t expect any help from me the next time one of these things show up,” Marvin cut in. “As much as I want to crush these things for tarnishing the name of Doll magic, I don’t have the stores for this kind of thing,”

“Yeah, you used up all the railgun rounds I gave you didn’t you?” Tina pointed out as my eyes widened. Those railguns had done good damage, and he had had only sixteen shots in those things?

“Not only am I out of the railgun ammo, but I lost six of my dolls by the time it was all over. I only have sixteen left and it’s going to take me over two months just to recoup my losses. At this rate, I’ll be a doll mage with no dolls,”

“Well, that’s too bad. You did a good job of holding off Shatter Mister,” Rashell said causing Marvin to cough.

“Mister? I’m only a few years older than you,” Rashell laughed at Marvin’s discomfort and teased him a bit more, calling him mister again.

Ana and I looked at each other and then at the quarreling pair. We made a silent agreement to ignore them and keep going.

“So if that’s the case, why are you so much stronger then the rest of us?” She asked Melodia. This time it was Pickati who came to her save.

“Well, I think I can work this out pretty quickly,” The flying fox said as he jumped onto the table between the two of us and Ana. “Melati, Sobeti, Vitati, can I have a word?”

The three other guardians emerged and took to the table as well.

“Hey there Pickati, what do you want to know,” The winged ferret said with a nervous chuckle.

“Tell me… what kind of training schedule do these girls have?”

“Training but we don’t… oh!” Ana said as she sat back.

“Well that explains some things,” Claire said as she gave the mini-orca the stink eye.

“Melodia here spends a large chunk of every Saturday training her magic, both with and without the use of The Power of The Stars,” Pickati explained as he loomed over the other three guardians despite his small size. “Now while I will admit that Melodia is a minor prodigy, if your girls followed the same regimen, then they should be able to match her no problem,”

“We… we… we…” The winged ferret leaned back as Pickati leaned forward.

“We didn’t feel like they were ready to learn magic the traditional way yet,” The hummingbird explained, making Pickati shift his attention to him.

“And why is that?” He said sounding like he was already thoroughly done with all three of them.

“Well, they are only children. We couldn’t just ask them to devote all of their free time to learning something as time-consuming as magic. They already have their hands full with things like family, friends and school las it is,”

“Plus, it’s far too dangerous. You out of all us should know how dangerous miscast magic can be. To teach them such things at such a young age would have been foolish and irresponsible,” The orca added.

The table grew strangely quiet… with the exception of a slowly laughing Pickati. It began with a low chuckle, then a slightly louder cackle, then finally all out manic laughter.

“Pickati, are you okay?” The ferret asked, the only one at the table able to talk. I was too freaked out and Melodia looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but here.

Pickati stopped laughing before dashing up to the ferret and looking right into her eyes.

“We conscripted children to fight an ancient evil with the power to level an entire modern City!” Pickati exploded at her. “Foolish and irresponsible was involving them in the first place. We did it because we had no other choice, because there was no other way. But we do have a choice in how we go about it. It is irresponsible to expect them to engage in life threating battles every week without giving them every tool they can use. It is foolish to expect them to fight without giving them any incentive. Teaching them magic in the traditional way to supplement the powers we gave them does both,”

“But we’re Guardians,” The hummingbird said, causing Pickati to zoom in front of him. The hummingbird gulped before continuing, sounding much less sure of himself. “Our job is to watch over and protect the powers until they could be given to those who would wield them. We’re not supposed to be teachers,”

“Ae you serious? Not your job? You throw these children into battle and don’t train them because it’s not your job? Melati, your child should already be working with vacuums and using air friction to make fire. Instead, she’s an Air Mage that can barely fly! Vitati,” He barked as he went to the orca. “Your child needed three spells to slow the Doll. She should be able to freeze Dolls with a touch and slow down time itself! And now Sobeti,” He announced before going back to the ferret. “You’re the worst one of all. Classic elements are some of the most powerful magic’s that humans can use. That your child isn’t an unstoppable warrior is on you!”

We all sat in stunned silence, both Humans and guardians. Seeing as no one else was going to do so, I reached out and picked up the panting Pickati. He looked worn out and he collapsed onto my hands the second he was on them.

“Starting tomorrow,” He said softly at the three terrified Guardians. “You are going to start training these girls in traditional magic. Am I clear?”

They said nothing, instead electing to just nod their heads. Pickati stayed silent then coiled up in my hands.

“So what was that about the fire?” Rashell cut in, breaking the tension in the room.


	13. A new problem

I opened my eyes and smiled at the water bottle in my hand. I held my breath as I held it up in front of me, and let it go. I laughed as the bottle hung in mid-air.

“Congratulations Enrique. You’ve managed to cast the spell successfully,” Pickati said as he floated next to me. “I can’t feel any weight holding the bottle,”

“I have freed its soul from gravity,” I joked as I tapped the bottle, making it slowly float away from me. “By the way, what time is it? Melodia and the others should be here soon.”

“I’m sure they’re on their way,” Pickati reassured me as we heard the door open.

“We’re back,” Melodia announced, Ana, Claire, and Rashell following after her with their guardians in tow.

“Hey there you,” I greeted back, “How was the training?”

Melodia looked over to the rest of the girls who looked dead tired.

“It’s going okay,” She finally answered. “Almost got accidentally set of fire today though, that wasn’t so fun,”

“I said as I was sorry,” Rashell said as the other three girls sat down on the couch.

“Never said I was mad about it,” Melodia told them as she went into the kitchen to grab them all drinks.

Pickati and I smiled as we watched her.

It had been two weeks since the Battle with Shatter. True to the Guardians’ promise, they had started training the other three girls. The results were pretty good so far. When the next Doll attacked a week later, they had taken care of and forced Shatter to retreat.

After they had gotten of their surprise that the attacks weren’t every two weeks after all.

I had spent the bulk of the time working on my own magic. I wasn’t at the level of my sister, but I was making respectable progress. Now that I had managed to reduce the weight of a small object to zero, the next thing on the list was doing it to a much larger object.

Namely, myself.

“By the way, are you sure that you wouldn’t rather Pickati help you in your training?” I said as Melodia came back into the room.

“Not really. I have the basics down and I’m really just building off that,” She explained as she handed out the drinks to the other three girls. “At the moment, there’s no real point in having Pickati help me. Of course, once I’m ready for new stuff…”

“I feel like there’s a sibling joke about wanting each other’s stuff here,” I commentated, which made Melodia smile. “Well, I hope you don’t mind me being your student in the meantime Pickati,”

“Honestly, if I didn’t have a second student, I feel like I would have gone stir crazy by now,” Pickati said he floated over to the kitchen and stole the gravity of an apple. He took a bite and swallowed before saying. “It helps that Enrique isn’t just breezing past all of the materials like a certain someone,”

“I didn’t progress that fast,” Melodia mumbled as she blushed and shuffled around.

“We’re not even supposed to be teachers…”

“What was that?” Pickati said as he almost teleported to the other three guardians. I hadn’t been sure which of the three had said it, and it looked like Pickati wasn’t too sure either.

“Nothing!” All three of them cried out at once. They all suddenly tensed up and dashed to a spot on the floor and returned to plushie form. I reached out and grabbed the weightless apple that Pickati had left behind.

“Melodia, are your friends going to stay long?” I glanced down at the plushie Guardians as my mom came into the room.

“Not really, why?” Melodia said, looking pleased with the word ‘friends’.

“I’m going to have leave soon if I’m going to take them home and avoid traffic. With these recent disappearances, I don’t want any of them walking home alone,”

“Okay, we’ll be done it a little bit,”

“Alright then, you just let me now,”

And with that, Mom walked out of the room.

“So anyone catch any of that?” Rashell asked from the couch.

“Not a word,” Ana confirmed.

“A few words here and there,” Claire admitted.

“Wow, you guys need to work on your Spanish,” I said as I bit into Pickati’s apple. If he didn’t want me to eat it, he shouldn’t have left it floating.

“I’m sorry, I thought this was America,” Ana said sounding weirdly patriotic for someone born to Ukrainian and Russian parents.

“Yeah well, this is Florida so get good at Spanish,” I fired back as my sister rolled her eyes. She explained what my Mother had said, starting a whole new round of discussion.

“People disappearing?” Ana said as she sat back, her guardian floating next to her. “Do you think it has anything to do with the Dolls?”

“It might,” I admitted as I recalled a text I had gotten yesterday. “Don’t worry though, Marvin’s looking into it. He has Ninja Dolls staking out the city. He’s promised to call if he finds anything,”

“Well,” Pickati said as she smacked his apple out of my hand. “We are due for another Doll attack any day now,”

Melodia called for Mom to take the girls home soon after.

“By the way, what exactly are you, Tina, and Marvin working on anyway?” I asked Melodia after Mom left.

It had happened soon after our talk in the café. Marvin and Tina had come to Melodia and had asked for her help in a secret project. All it had taken was two minutes behind a closed door to convince Melodia to become the third member of the secretive Project Talos. Every time I asked about it, I got the same response, from my sister.

“It’s a surprise, just wait and see,” She said, just like she said every time.

The next day went by pretty normally until around lunchtime. Pickati felt another Doll trying to make it through the seal, and Melodia was soon out the door. Apparently, it was close enough that Melodia could get there on foot. Pickati also chose to stay back, sensing that the Doll wouldn’t be that strong and that this was a good chance for the girls to work on their teamwork.

I wished her good luck and sat down, expecting to spend the rest of the day in peace.

And, of course, my phone rang the second I sat down. I pulled it out and grimaced at the caller I.D.

“Hey Marvin, any good news?” I asked as Pickati floated up next to me. I raised an eyebrow at him and put the phone on speaker to make this go smoother.

“No, I’m afraid not. Is anyone else there with you?”

“I’m here, Melodia went out to fight a fake Doll,” Pickati answered for me.

“I guess that can work for now,” Marvin said sounding frustrated. “You two need to head over here as fast as possible. You still have my address right?”

“Yeah, I can be there in a little bit,” I told him as I started grabbing the stuff I would need for the motorcycle.

“Good, and Enrique, Pickati,” We both stopped in place to listen. “Whatever you do, don’t pick up or touch anything on the way here,”

“Don’t touch or pick up anything, got it. I’ll see you in a little bit,” I said before hanging up and rushing for the motorcycle.

“Well this could be worrying,” Pickati said as he got into my jacket.

“You have an idea on what it could be?”

“A few, but I’ll save them for when we arrive. No point in worrying about things until we learn more,”

We arrived at Marvin’s house in good time. The traffic was weirdly light today, but I wasn’t about to complain.

I walked up to the ordinary two-story house to knock on the door when it swung open. Marvin grabbed my arm and dragged me into his house. Before I could get a word out, he slammed the door behind us.

“Come quickly, there is something you must see,” He said as he started walking down the hall towards a bookcase. He grabbed a random book on the shelf and pulled it out. There was a series of clicking sounds behind the bookcase before it swung open.

I followed after Marvin as he led me down a staircase to a hallway with a series of doors.

“I still can’t believe that you have a basement,” I told him as he stopped in front of one of the doors. I glanced over to the last door in the hallway that’s labeled ‘Project Talos keep out!’

I ignored it and followed after Marvin through the door he opened.

Marvin’s lab didn’t look much like a lab. There was a main table next to a large shelf filled to the brim with raw ingredients. On the table was a mess of tools that were probably used to make dolls.

But that wasn’t the center of attention. There was a new table, a small one in the center of the room.

The three of us surrounded it and I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Marvin, why do you have a dollar bill sealed in a glass case?” I asked, trying to figure out the trick.

“Pretty convincing isn’t it?” He said as he opened a little bag next to the case. He took out a pair of metal gloves and a piece of raw meat. “Watch and see,”

“I don’t like where this going,” I commentated as a blue string shot out from Marvin’s finger and wrapped around the meat.

“Neither do I,” Pickati added as three dolls bearing spears appeared from behind us. Marvin opened the top of the glass case with one hand and slowly lowered the meat.

The second the meat touched the dollar, the bill sprouted thorns and wrapped itself around the meat. Marvin dropped the meat and slammed the case closed. He let out a sigh and looked up at the two of us.

“As you can see, we appear to be suffering from an infestation of mimics,”


	14. We have a plan

“Okay, so I’m just going to assume that things aren’t that bad yet,” I said as Marvin watched the glass case carefully. “If it was, you would have called everyone instead of just the two of us,”

“Yes and no,” Marvin replied with a scowl. “From my reading on mimics, and what I’ve been able to gather these last few days, we still have time. But if we’re going to handle this situation successfully, we all need to act fast,”

“What a terrifying creature,” Pickati said as he flew around the glass case. “The modern world is as full of horrors as its wonders,”

“I wouldn’t call it a modern horror Pickati,” Marvin said as he grabbed a book off the shelf. He set the blue and gold tome on the table filled with tools. We walked over and saw the title, ‘On the habits and behaviors of new world shapeshifters’.

“I still can’t believe that I have this book in my library,” Marvin said as he opened the book to near the back. He stopped at a page with the word ‘Mimic’ printed in large text at the top. “One of the advantages of having a fully stocked Magi library I suppose,”

“It’s too bad we only have a single book though,” Pickati said with a pained expression.

“Not exactly,” Marvin said as he stooped his reading. “I have three other books that have entries on Mimics. However all three of them cite this book as their source and contain no information that wasn’t already in this book,”

“Regrettable, what does it say?” Pickati said looking a little anxious.

“It’d be best to gather everyone for a full rundown, but for now our best bet is fire. They have a tough time remaining in an object when exposed to heat,” He explained

“What kind of heat? With how hot it’s been lately, we might be safe in the day time,” I pointed out.

Marvin sopped in place and put on a pained expression.

“I’m an idiot,” He seethed as he walked over to another part of the room that I hadn’t been paying attention to earlier. He grabbed a double-sided whiteboard and pulled it closer to us. He flipped it over and showed us what looked like a rough map of the coast. Scattered throughout the map were points labeled with numbers.

“Are you okay,” I asked hesitantly as Marvin grabbed a folder off the shelf and opened it up. Inside was a mess of papers that seemed to missing person’s reports. A doll floated over to us as Marvin poured over the paper, handing the magi a marker.

“If the mimics are limited to hunting at night because of the spring heat, then that changes everything,” Marvin said as he started making slight changes to the map as he went over the files. “Events three and six are clear, they occurred in shaded areas, but if the rest of them were nighttime attacks, then that means,” He said to himself as he started drawing a series of progressively smaller circles.

“Is that where the Mimics came from?” I asked as I tried to figure out where exactly the center of all the circles was. It took me a moment, but I figured it out quickly enough.

“This particular infestation yes, it appears that our little friends came in on a boat,” He said as he marked the ports at the center of the circle.

“So what do we do need to do get rid of the infestation?” I asked as I looked back at the dollar mimic in the glass case.

“Mimics don’t spawn by themselves, they're all sterile. Instead, they have a main brood queen that spawns them. Fortunately for us, this queen becomes immobile once it starts producing mimics, so it should be somewhere in or around the ports,”

“So we take out the queen, and no more new Mimics,” I guessed.

“That’s right, from there all we have to do is either hunt down or wait out the remaining mimics,”

“Wait out?” Pickati inquired. “How long do they live for?”

“A few months at most. Mimics are born, gather food, return to the Queen, and are then in turn eaten,” Marvin explained before we all jumped at the sound of something slapping glass.

The dollar mimic was sticking to the wall of the glass case, its thorn teeth trying and failing to cut through. It looked a little pathetic actually. It gave up after a short while and retracted its teeth.

“Not the most fulfilling life, is it?” Pickati joked.

“With the way Marvin fed it that meat, I guess it’s a bit filling,” I said before we both let out a bit nervous laughter. “It can’t hurt us right?”

“Not this one, not yet anyway. They get bigger the more they eat though, so it probably wants to switch hosts now that it’s been fed,”

Pickati and I both looked at each other for a second before turning to Marvin.

“Hosts?” We both asked at the same time. He looked at us in confusion before rising his brow.

“Oh right, Mimics aren’t true shapeshifters. What you see here isn’t a mimic in the shape of a dollar bill. It’s an ordinary dollar bill covered in a thin shapeshifting membrane. Now that the Mimic is a bit bigger, it’s too thick for its membrane to cover the dollar perfectly, it wants something bigger,”

Now that I looked at a bit a little closer, the dollar looked a bit different now. I could make out a weird, colorless goo covering parts of the dollar.

“How big can they get?” Pickati asked as he eyed the mimic warily.

“The largest one in my admittedly limited record is an account of a mimic covering a small house and eating everyone that walked in. it was burnt to ash once the townspeople caught on,”

“Okay, so what’s the plan?”

“Tonight, I’m going to head over to the port and try to locate the queen. Once we know where it is, we can send everyone to attack it,”

“Well, that’s good. By the way, there’s something that I’ve been wanting to ask you,”

“Fire away,” He replied.

“Isn’t there anyone else in town that can lend us a hand? Just weird to think that saving the town is going to fall onto three teenagers and four middle schoolers,”

“Unfortunately, no one in any of the association member’s families has the ability to use or the knowledge of magic. We were all trained by either now dead relatives or in my case, a special book designed to awaken the magic of someone in the family and containing all the basics of doll magic,”

“And there aren’t any other magic users in town?”

“None, trust me I checked after the last time we had a troubling situation. We had to deal with a dire shark by ourselves,”

“So we really are on our own,” I said with a sigh. “So what do you need me to do? I’m not exactly the most accomplished mage, but you called me for a reason,”

Marvin nodded and walked over to the tool covered desk and searched around a bit. He grabbed a folder and took out a letter.

“I need you to deliver this letter and this mimic to Clancy. She should know a tracking spell or two that will help us track down the rest of the mimics. I’d do it but I’m pretty sure that she has some spells set up around her house that will kill anyone with Mezavon DNA if they get too close,”

There was a strange pause as we all stood around for a bit.

“You just mentioned something very concerning,” I told him as I took the letter from him.

“The Bloodturner-Mezavon feud runs deep and is none of your concern,” He protested before walking to the mimic and reaching for something underneath the table. He took out a smaller glass case, which he held in one hand.

“Considering that our number of combat-ready magi can be counted on both hands, I would say that two of them trying to murder each other is a bit of a concern,” Pickati argued as Marvin carefully opened the glass case containing the mimic. We all watched in silence as the dollar growled and leaped right at Marvin’s face.

Marvin placed the smaller container between the two of them just in time for the Mimic to fly in. Without a word, he sealed the case before the mimic could get free.

“So yeah, just need you to take this to Clancy’s house, tell her to set up some sort of tracking spell,” He said as he passed me the smaller case.

“Are you sure this is going to hold this thing? The last thing I need is for it to break out while I’m on the motorcycle,” I inspected the case and the dollar inside. It had calmed down a bit, and it wasn’t moving anymore.

“You’ll be fine, if anything, just have Pickati watch it with a gravity spell ready,” Marvin said, waving away my fears.

“I would feel a little offended at the assumption that you could tell me how to use my magic if the situation wasn’t so dire,” Pickati sounded unamused as he floated up to Marvin.

“If the situation wasn’t so dire, I wouldn’t have made the assumption,” Marvin said as we heard a series of bells coming from outside. “Oh, looks like it’s done,”

We all walked out and found a large wooden box on the floor. Marvin picked it up and placed it on his back.

“I have my Dolls, you have your task, let’s go,” He said as he started walking up the stairs.

“By the way, there was just one more thing I wanted to ask you,” Marvin stopped at the top of the stairs and looked downwards at me. The light shining from behind him cast his face in shadow, cutting an unnerving figure.

“Make it quick,” He said curtly.

“You put that box in your backpack right?” I said fighting back a gulp.

“A bag like it, yes,” He said simply.

“And since you use those to carry around your dolls… Marvin, are you basically bringing several, knives, spears, guns, flamethrowers and explosives to school every day?”

The silence that followed felt deafening. I looked at Marvin, who looked back at me, neither of us looking too sure where this conversation was going to go now.

“You have your task,” He finally said as he turned away from me and opened the door to the main house. “Let’s go,”

Just going to ignore it then…” I said, mostly to Pickati. “I don’t know how to feel about this,”

“You see, headaches like these are just the tip of the iceberg labeled ‘why we choose non-magi children’ when giving out the powers,” Pickati said as we walked out of the basement.

“I thought you just picked the four strongest that you could find?” I asked as we walked out the door and headed to the motorcycle.

“We did, and had they been part of an existing magi family they would have been passed over,”

“Any other big reasons for that by the way?” I inquired as I got to work securing the mimic-containing case to the bike.

“A Magi’s pride in their family’s craft is both legendary and deadly. Offering to teach a child of one of those families a magic style that their ancestors spent generations cultivating would be a disaster. Either the child would refuse and be insulted, or they could accept and be cast out of the family,” Pickati explained before looking unsure. “Or at least, that’s how it was before this ‘Starving Time, changes so much. I always thought that magi society would be the cesspit pit of corruption, betrayal, dynastic politics and murder that it had been in the old times,”

“Does having Marvin and Clancy trying to murder each other help in any way?” I joked as I gave the ropes one last tug. At least, I had meant that as a joke. Neither the look on Pickati’s face and his silence were good signs.

“Let’s just get to Clancy’s house,” Pickati said and we both got on the bike and rode away in silence.


	15. A plan in motion

Despite my worry, we reached Clancy’s house without incident. The most eventful thing to happen on the way over was the dollar mimic throwing itself at the glass case a few times. It didn’t make any progress so I didn’t worry about it too much.

Continuing the trend of magic users having relatively normal looking houses, Clancy’s house was completely within the ordinary. A white two story house with a red shingled roof and a separated garage.

I placed my motorcycle near the garage and walked up to the door.

‘Well, Marvin wasn’t exaggerating in any case,” I heard Pickati comment from my jacket. “There is, in fact, a defensive spell over the property. Specifically, one that, if activated, would freeze the intruder’s blood and make it shoot out of them in big spikes,”

“So should we not…” I trailed off as I gave the properly line a hard look.

“Oh no, the spell would only go off if exposed to a certain DNA signature,”

“So it would only freeze and murder Marvin then?”

“That’s right,”

I let out a sigh as we approached the door and knocked.

There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door as someone ran towards us. They stopped and soon enough, the door was swinging open in front of us to reveal a panting Clancy.

“Why are you here?” She hissed at us.

I blinked and held up the box. To my luck, the Mimic choose that exact moment to come to life and lounge at Clancy. She jumped back as the monster hit the glass and slid back to the floor.

“Marvin thinks that you can make a tracking spell to track down the rest of these things,” I explained, still standing at her doorstep.

“I can, but why should I help him with anything?” She said as she actually stuck her nose up at me.

“Because these things have already eaten people and we should stop them before anyone else dies?” I pointed it out as her haughty expression lifted.

“Good point… Hand it over and I should have a tracking spell for this thing done by tomorrow,”

Well… that was a quick change. I handed the container over to Clancy who had the decency to at least look a little guilty as she did so.

“Sorry about that. I have a bit of uh… a thing about working with Marvin,”

“Because of course, you do,” Pickati said as he poked his head out which caused Clancy to perk up and smile.

“Oh hi there Pickati, you think about that offer of mine,”

“I’m not selling you my blood Clancy,” He said plainly as Clancy huffed and turned away from us.

“Well if you two are done I have a tracking spell to get done,” She told us as she went back into her house.

“Charming as ever huh?” I asked as Pickati and I walked back to the motorcycle. “The girls should be done with the doll by now. We should see if we can meet up with them and tell them about the mimics,”

“Good idea, I’ll lead the way,” Pickati said as he settled back into my jacket.

We spent the rest of the ride in comfortable silence. We pulled up to the sight of the four girls sitting around a park bench under the shade of a tree.

“Hey girls, rough fight?” I asked as I kicked the motorcycle in place.

“Hey, Enrique,” Melodia said as she waved to me even as the other girls just sat around. “Yeah, we had to deal with another one of Shatter’s dolls. I think he and Break are alternating their attacks now,”

In the time since Shatter first appeared, a pattern had emerged. The Uniform wearing monster preferred a single, powerful, small Doll that required all four of the girls to fight. Break, on the other hand, preferred to go for as many big, beefy dolls as he could.

“I hope so, fighting Shatter is so much more of a pain,” Claire said as she eyed a spot on the ground. A closer look revealed the remains of quickly melting ice forming a circle around it.

“At least we don’t have to worry about anything until next week,” Rashell said in a relieved tone that made me feel a little guilty over what I was about to do.

“Yeah, about that,” I started, causing all four girls to lock on to me. “That might not exactly be true,”

“Explain older brother,” Melodia demanded. “Please don’t tell me that the spirit of destruction is attacking twice a week now?”

“Well no but…”

“The spirit of destruction isn't the only supernatural based danger in the world,” Pickati finished for me as he emerged from his space in my jacket. “For example, the recent infestation of shape-shifting monsters that are eating people around town,”

All four of the girls just looked at me in silence.

“No, we’re not joking,” I told them “These things have been responsible for the recent disappearances,”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Ana said with a determined look on her face. I noticed that she had her fists clenched like she was ready to take the threat head-on.

It was pretty admirable, too bad I had to take the winds out of her sails.

“Nothing for now,” I said as I watched the girl deflate. “Marvin is doing some scouting tonight with his Ninja dolls, so we should have a plan by tomorrow,”

“Oh, that’s fine I guess,” She said huffed as Claire and Rashell gave teasing giggles. Melodia on the other hand just rolled her eyes.

“Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to play your part when we go after the Queen-Mimic. In the meantime, try to avoid touching objects that haven’t been in the sun,” I told them as I explained what I knew about the mimics, including that they couldn’t hold their forms in heat. I also told them that they had come in via boat and that Marvin was checking out the Ports to find the Queen.

“So what you’re saying is that I should be there so I can set stuff on fire,” Rashell said at the end of the explanation.

“The fact that that was all you got out of that worries me, and make me fearful for the day you learn to create fire without transforming,” Melodia said as Rashell stuck her tongue out at her.

I started heading back to leave when I noticed a familiar approaching face. It didn't take long for Melodia to notice as well.

“Oh hey Ray,” She said as she waved at the boy who jumped at the sound of his name being called. He looked around for a second before noticing the rest of us. He broke out into a smile and started running over.

I glanced over to the table and saw some… reactions as the boy approached. Melodia looked calm and happy to see a friend. Claire and Rashell were both looking at Ana with wide grins on their faces.

As for Ana, she looked as red as a ground cherry.

“Oh hey Mels, Mels’s older brother,” He said to us before looking to the other girls on the bench. His eyes widened upon seeing Ana among the group. He gulped and I was pretty sure he would have started sweating if he wasn’t already doing so. “Hi Ana,”

“Hi Ray,” She said back, sounding softer and more shyly then I thought the girl was capable of.

My eyes met my Sisters who gave me a set of raised eyebrows. She did this on purpose.

“So Ray, what are you doing out here?” She said sounding like a cat that was just left alone with a clipped wing canary.

“Oh you know, running, getting ready for the Soccer match we have coming up,” He said, causing both Melodia and I to flinch.

“I swear to God Ray, I will get you to call it Football one of these days,” She said as she gave the boy a playful glare.

“Oh, sorry. So what are you all doing out here?”

“Not much, just hanging out for a bit. We were pretty much done actually, so my brother came to pick me up,” She explained as she got off from the bench and started walking over to the motorcycle. “I have to get going, so I guess I’ll see you on Monday,”

“See you Monday then,” He said as he waved my sister goodbye. She waved back before stopping in place and putting on a surprised expression.

“Oh, that’s right. Claire, Rashell, didn't you two have to leave a bit early today?” She asked as she gave both girls a wink. She was far from subtle, and both Ray and Ana figured out here game right away.

However, both Rashell and Claire figured it out just as quick.

“Oh that’s right,” Claire said as she stepped up from her seat.

“I have to get going,” Rashell likewise said as she jumped from her seat and started running off.

Melodia and I got on my Uncle's motorcycle. I revved it and the last thing I saw before heading off was Ana and Ray staring at each other awkwardly.

“Don’t you think that was a bit much?” I asked as we reached a red.

“No way, watching those two dance around each other is getting old. Plus Ana has to move fast if she wants to keep the most datable boy in school,”

“Oh and is that just your opinion or?”

“Not even close. All of the girls at school think he’s cute. I do too, but I’m not interested,” She said nonchalantly. “He’s also smart, kind, plays on the football team, real football not American, and the only thing he’s missing is a good singing voice,”

“He can’t sing?” I asked as the light turned green again and we continued on.

“Well, I’m not sure actually. Never heard him sing before,” She said before trailing off and muttering to herself.

“You okay back there?”

“Think we should invite him to the next family karaoke night?”

“I’m pretty sure inviting a boy to family Karaoke night would give everyone the wrong idea. Especially if you’re not actually interested in him,” I pointed out as I imagined how such a night would go down. Ray’d be grilled by every older man there and declared Melodia’s “novio” by everyone else.

Speaking of my sister, I could feel her shiver behind me, probably from the same thoughts I was having.

“Good point, maybe we can invite him over the day after, while we still have all the karaoke equipment in the house,”

“You really want to hear this boy sing,”

“I need to know now,” She said as though that was the final word. Which in a sense it was, as we didn't really say anything else until we reached home.


	16. The plan falls apart

It was late at night when I got the call.

I heard my phone ringing from my room while sitting on the living room couch. I looked up and saw that no one else was going to get it, so I got up and ran to my room.

The caller I.D. said Marvin, so I picked it up without a second thought.

“Marvin? Is everything…”

“I need back up,” He said cutting me off. “The mimic queen wasn’t the only thing that came aboard the ship. I need you to bring whatever help you can muster and head down to the docks, I’m held up on the roof of an office building, I’ll send you the directions now,”

I moved my ear away as my phone made the sound of a received text.

“I’ll do what I can, but what are we dealing with? What else was on the ship?”

“I think it’s some sort of amphibious sea serpent. Nothing I have on me is making a scratch on this thing. I have to go, I’ve spotted it coming this way,” He said before hanging up with a quick click.

I looked down at my phone before blinking. I poked my head out my door and called for Melodia to come up to my room. While she was on her way, I marked Tina.

“Hey Enrique, what’s up?” She asked just as Melodia walked into the room, Pickati on her shoulder. I placed her on speaker to be able to tell everyone at once.

“Marvin needs help down by the port before he gets eaten by some sort of sea serpent,” I explained as quickly as I could. “I’m going to go help him out, you in?”

“Say no more, I’m already in my van,” Tina said as I heard the rumble of a car engine on the other side of the line. “I’m already in the area, so I should get there in a few minutes,”

She hung up after that leaving the three of us.

I looked over to my sister who was already getting her phone out.

“Ana, could you call everyone else and meet at the port? Marvin’s run into some trouble,” I could hear muttering on the other end of the line and saw Melodia’s eyes widen in shock before she yelled into the phone. “What do you mean you’re already there?”

Well, that wasn’t good.

Melodia hung up the phone and turned to me.

She didn’t have to say a word, a few minutes later, and the three of us were on our way to the port.

The port was your typical port in most ways, a bunch of boats, a maze of shipping containers, and the occasional office or storage building. There was one exception, instead of being on the mainland, it was on a small island connected to the rest of the city via bridge.

I didn't like that we were facing a sea serpent on a very sinkable island, but we needed to save Marvin. I had found myself liking the little Magi, despite his worrying tendency to come to school armed to the teeth.

We reached the bridge and saw that Tina had already beaten us here. Her Van was parked off to the side in the empty parking lot. I pulled up my motorcycle next to it for the sake of convenience.

“You should probably transform now, before we go in,” I told Melodia as I watched the port, the maze of shipping containers looking sinister underneath the dark night sky. Melodia nodded and held her hand out.

“Power of the Stars, guide me through the deepest wells,” She called out before she was engulfed in purple light. After a moment or two, the light subsided, revealing the long jacket and short shorts of her transformed state.

“Let’s do this,” She said as she suddenly started running across the bridge towards the maze. I followed after her before noticing that she was much faster than me.

“She’s lowering her own weight isn’t she?” I asked Pickati as she reached the end of the bridge and looked back at us. I motioned with my hands for her to go on ahead.

“Well that, and remember that the powers we grant also bestow increased physical ability,” He pointed out as we also reached the containers and went in after her.

I kept my ears open as I walked down the walls of the maze. The last thing I needed was to be taken by surprise and killed off like a horror movie extra. I made sure to glance upwards every few seconds. With the way the colored containers towered over me, it was a clear possibility.

Left, right, right again, a left this time, it felt like the labyrinth would never end. Every so often, I would hear the sound of creaking metal or the whistling wind. What I couldn’t hear, was the sound of a terrifying sea monster intent on eating the face of anyone it met.

I stopped and asked myself if was as scared as I should have been. After a second or two to think it over, I decided that I really wasn’t.

Well, I guess that it was for the best. Panicking wouldn't help me, I needed to keep a calm…

“Hey Pickati?” I asked the little fox that perched himself onto my shoulder. “Did that container just move a bit?”

“Yeah I think it did,” He said as we both looked at a particularly glossy container that had shifted a bit a few seconds before.

I took a step back, careful to not actually touch any of the other containers. I gulped as the container shifted a bit again. With my limited repertoire of spells, all I could really do was lighten one of the other containers and use it to block the path as I ran.

I began to review the concepts I would need when the mimic moved. It erupted from the container, a see-through sac of formless goo that touched the container next to it and swallowed it whole. Before it had the chance to fully settle, it jumped to the next container, and then the next, and then the next,”

“Well that was disturbing,” Pickati said as I watched the mimic race off to somewhere down the long hallway of containers. Well to somewhere or…

“We’re chasing after it,” I told the Fox as I started running.

“Excuse me?” I looked to my side and saw Pickati flying next to me. “Why are we chasing it?”

“Because if it’s running away from something, then I’m pretty sure we’re going to run from too,” I explained as we turned the corner. I saw the mimic again, still jumping from container to container. Or at least it did until a large mass hidden in the shadows crashed into it, knocking it and a bunch of other containers over.

Pickati and I stopped in place and hid behind one of the containers. The mimic container shifted as I saw something move in the shadows cast by the containers.

I saw the mimic try to reach out in the direction of the shadow, only to reach the end of the container and stop.

Before anything else could move, something flashed out of the shadows and struck the container mimic. There was a screeching sound as a long claw at the end of tentacle carved into the metal of the container.

The mimic crawled out of the container as the metal around the claw began to glow with heat. Before it could make any distance another clawed tentacle came out of the shadow and pierced the mimic.

The mimic reached out in every direction, but couldn’t move with the claw pinning it in place. It also looked like it couldn’t consume the tentacle and the creature it was attached too.

The tentacle arched back as the mimic screamed in pain. The claw glowed gold as the creature emerged from the shadows.

At first glance, I thought that it was a lion. In a way, it was at least part lion. A sickly looking, mane lacking, scale-covered blueish-gray Lionhead was the first thing to emerge from the shadows.

What followed after it was a bit less lion-like. It had the slimy body of some sort of fish creature. A mass of clawed tentacles emerged from various parts of its body, lacking any rhyme or reason for their placements.

It needed them too, as it had no leg or tail. Instead, it dragged itself along the ground, propelling itself to the pinned mimic with its writhing tentacles. As it neared the trapped monster, the not-lion opened a third eye in the middle of its forehead. It raised its head up and looked at the night sky with its three eyes. Just as I was beginning to wonder if it was going to do anything else, it roared and sank its teeth into the mimic.

All I could do was watch as the not-lion ripped the mimic apart and ate it piece by piece. Clear colored slime rolled down its chin as it tore off a piece of the mimic with its fangs.

Judging by the lack of noise that Pickati was making, it didn't look like there was much he could do either.

I took a step back, the sound of my squeaking sneaker deafening my ears. My eyes watched as the not-lion stopped its meal.

All at once, golden slit eyes opened along its entire body. They moved around frantically until one in particular caught sight of me. With an inhuman degree of synchronization, every single eye turned to me until I was staring at the not-lion head on.

It was at that moment that I figured out that I might have been a bit over my head on this one.


	17. A new plan

I started backing away as soon as the eyes fell on me. Slowly, I stepped back as the creature turned to me and growled. It still had quite a bit of mimic left to eat, so hopefully, it would leave me alone if I made it clear that I wasn’t here to steal its meal.

I walked back, each step taking me further and further away from the monster that still had its eyes locked onto me. Or maybe they were looking at Pickati, wasn’t too sure on that front.

Either way, it didn’t move, even as we made it to a turn in the labyrinth and vanished from its sight. Pickati and I looked at each other as we started hearing the sounds of the monster going back to its meal. We nodded to each other and went on our way, the need to meet up with anyone else in this place now much more pressing.

It took us a little while to reach the office building that Marvin had been talking about on the phone. To our incredible luck, nothing of note happened on that trip. We stood at the wall and looked up at the roof where Marvin should be waiting.

“I’ll help you out and then scout around a bit,” Make sure that the monster we saw isn’t coming this way,” Pickati explained as he started preparing a spell.

He passed it to me and I felt my weight become nothing. I aimed at the roof and jumped.

I rose through the air like I was floating up through water. I cleared the roof and saw that not only was Marvin here, Tina had also made it somehow. I cut the spell while I was still just a bit above the roof.

“Hey Marvin, Hey Tina,” I said as I touched down on the roof.

“Hey you made it, everything okay?” I nodded at Tina’s question.

“Enrique… where’s your sister?” Marvin said without a second thought. Tina and I both rolled our eyes at him.

“Good to see you too Marvin,” I told him as I glanced down at the labyrinth of containers below. “She’s somewhere down there, Ana too. No idea where either of them are though,” I told them a loud crashing sound suddenly rang from a particular spot in the labyrinth.

We all stood at the edge of the roof and watched as some of the containers rose up as though they were… weightless. Then, as quickly as they rose, they fell back to earth with a mighty crash.

“Well looks like we found at least one of them,” Marvin said as he glanced behind him. I followed his eyes and almost jumped off the building in shock.

Standing on the building with us was a fourth figure cloaked in shadow. It walked towards us and allowed itself to step into the gloomy light to be seen.

It stood tall, taller than perhaps any person I had ever met, but while tall it was also thin, like a reed that stood like iron, unswaying in the wind. It wore a long raggedy black cloak with a hood that covered most of its head. I gulped as I looked up to its eyes a pair of unfeeling, lifeless blue orbs looking back at me. The skin around it, the only skin I could see, looked fake, artificial, maybe even… plastic?

“Is this one of yours?” I asked Marvin who walked up to what I assumed was one of his dolls.

“My finest work, not often I have a reason to bring my Maria into play,” He explained as he turned back to us and leaned back into the doll that caught him with their arms. “Had Shatter forced his way through my dolls in my fight with him, it would have been up to her to defend me. Say hello to Carol,”

I looked up to the blue eyes that looked back.

“Hi Carol,” I said as Marvin sighed.

“I didn’t actually mean… you know what? Forget it, we have other things to do. Let’s head down there and help them out,” He explained before Pickati suddenly came flying up the side of the building.

“Might be a change of plans,” He said as he jetted past me. He spared a glance at Carol as he flew around before dismissing her and continuing. “We appear to be surrounded,”

“Surrounded?” Tina asked as she looked over the edge and looked down into the labyrinth. “But I don’t see anything out… oh right, mimics,”

“Ae you sure?” Marvin said as Pickati took out a lighter from… where the heck was he holding that?

“Fun fact, a lighter can double as a mimic revealer if you have a way to hold it up to one without getting into snacking range,”

“Are you sure it’s only mimics?” Marvin asked as he glanced downwards too. “Can you point them out for my dolls?” He asked as a small squad of four dolls appeared from various hiding spots on the roof.

Pickati nodded and motioned for the dolls to follow him. I watched as Pickati approached a yellow container and pointed right at it.

The dolls arranged themselves around the container and opened fire with flame throwers. I could see the mimic rise up in pain, and then die.

It was a pretty effective tactic, one that kept everyone out of danger. There was only one flaw that I could see.

“So how much fuel…”

“Enough to get rid of any mimics in our way. Nowhere near enough to clear this place of mimics,” He explained as Pickati pointed out another mimic for the dolls to burn. “On the bright side, I found the Queen,”

“Well, that’s good. Where is she?” Tina asked as another mimic went up in flames.

“First floor of this building,”

Tina and I both blinked and looked at Marvin who wore his usual calm expression.

“Excuse me?” I asked as I looked around at the roof, no longer trusting it.

“I came up through the stairs,” Tina added as she looked at the roof access door.

“Don’t worry, the Queen is immobile and can’t transform. She couldn’t even eat us if she tried. Her only way of taking in food is accepting it from her mimics,”

“Still would have been nice to know,” I told him as I walked up to the door. “So why don’t we deal with her now?”

“Because she’s as tough as she is immobile. I don’t have anything capable of breaking her armor and killing her,”

“What kind of armor is it?” Tina asked cutting in. Marvin gave her a considering look before glancing down at her hips.

“Did you being those stone breaker charges?” Tina gave a wild smile in response to the question. She shifted her coat a bit to reveal a large pack hanging from each hip. “Looks like we have another change of plans. Let me recall the dolls,”

“Oh yeah! Who’s up for a bit of regicide?” Tina cheered as she punched the air. Seeing no reason not to, I punched the air too.

“Why do you have your arms in the air?” Pickati asked as he followed the dolls back to the roof. I took a second to catch him up to speed as Tina did something to the door to open it without tripping the alarms. We heard a low clicking sound followed by a triumphant ‘yes’ from Tina and saw her open the door without a care in the world.

I took in a deep breath as I walked over to the door. I nodded at Pickati and then the four of us descended into the dark below.


	18. Just throw the plan into the trash and light it on fire.

“So what the heck was up with that tentacle lion?” I asked as we went down the barely illuminated stairwell. The lights on the wall were off and our only source of light was a single lantern that Marvin had one of his smaller dolls carry. Where he had gotten the lantern from, I had no idea.

“So the good news is that I knew where it came from,” Marvin began to explain as he walked behind Carol. “It was on one of the ships, specifically the same that had the mimic queen on it. Disturbingly, I’m pretty sure that it was in a crate,”

“Someone brought that nightmare here on purpose?” I hissed as Tina watched the two of us.

“Nightmare? It can’t be that bad…” Tina said, reminding me that she hadn’t actually seen the creature yet.

“You would be wrong,” Pickati said as he gazed into the dark below.

“As for the bad news, I have no clue what the heck it is,”

I let out a sigh as the conversation died. Whatever that thing was, we would deal with it after taking care of the mimic queen.

W reached the first floor as Marvin put up his hand to tell us to stop. He carefully opened up the stairwell door and led us down the corridors until we reached what looked like a storeroom.

Marvin put his finger on his lip and made a nearly silent shushing noise. We gently palmed the doorknob and turned it open. He let out a breath as he pushed it open.

I had to fight back the urge to jump as I looked through the door.

At first, I thought it was stone, But stone doesn’t pulse like it had a heartbeat. Stone wasn’t usually the color of rusted blood. Stone didn’t have cords that sprouted from it that attached to other parts of the stone that pulsed as some vile fluid coursed through them. Stone didn’t openings that revealed an underlayer of flesh and blood.

No this wasn’t stone, this was the mimic queen in all of its vile glory.

I tore my eyes from the thing, not wanting to look at it directly. It freaked me out too much. As I did, I noticed that something was off. The sign on the door had said that this was a storeroom. Had I been wrong, because this looked way too big for that to be the case?

I took a closer look and realized what was going on.

I had been right, this had been a storeroom, as well as two rooms. The thing growing out of the wall, ceiling, and floor had somehow grown through the walls and collapsed them.

“So how are we dealing with this thing?” I asked as Tina walked forward with her hands in her hip pockets.

“Well I have a few of these,” Tina said as she took out a few metal objects from her pockets. “You said the stone breakers right?”

The stone breakers were small metal cylinders around the size of a large syringe. They were solid uniform metal, except for a row of blue lights at one end and a downwards pointing arrow on the other.

Marvin nodded and pointed at some of the openings where the flesh underneath showed.

“Yeah, those holes lead right to the birthing chambers where the mimics are born. We blow those up, the armor covering them should break and leave then open for further damage,”

Tina cringed as she took note of how many openings there were. She counted them out and then did the same to the charges. She took a careful step forward and shivered as her foot touched the rock shell of the mimic queen.

“Ugh, this feels so weird,” She commentated as she reached the first opening. She took out the first of the charges, aimed the arrow downwards, and clicked the top of the charge. A large spike emerged which Tina plunged downwards into the opening.

We all froze in place as the mimic queen began to shake.

It was only for a second or two, but it was enough to give us all heart attacks.

Tina gave a gulp as the mimic queen settled. She advanced, more charges in her hands ready for deployment.

The three of us watched as Tina stuck the charges in one by one. After several nerve-wracking minutes, the job was done and all of the charges were armed and ready. Tina looked more than happy as she walked off the mimic’s body.

As soon as Tina was clear, Marvin’s doll floated towards the charges with the lantern. It flew from charge to charge, double checking each one. After checking them all, Marvin gave the charges and appreciative nod.

“Alright so now we detonate the charges. That should blow open the shell which will leave us able to… where are you going Tina?”

“I’m getting the heck out of this building,” She explained like we were all idiots for not doing the same. “The rock Breaker Charges get stronger the more of them that get used at once. I’m not going to set off that many of them while I’m still the same building as them,”

The three of us all looked at each other and then at Tina who was already walking towards the stairwell.

Needless to say, we followed after her to said stairwell and through the exit that was inside it.

“So is this the part where we blow up a building?” I asked as we all stood side by side, or floated in Pickati’s case. I let out a sigh as I took in the normal looking building for the last time before it got blown up by lightning bolts.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Tina said without even a hint of guilt. She took out a small switch from her pocket and glanced at us. “So three seconds after I press this switch, the charges are going to go off. That gives us plenty of time to turn around and start walking away dramatically,”

I would like to believe that given a second or two to process what Tina just said, I would have spoken up. I did not get a second. Instead, I got Tina immediately pressing the switch after her explanation.

Well, guess I just had to go with the flow. I turned around and did my best to ignore the domestic terrorist vibes that Tina was giving off as the building behind me exploded in a flash of blue.

Walking away from the explosion while not looking at it did feel cool though, so I had to give Tina that at least. Still, there was at least one little issue with this.

“You do realize that we’re going to have to go back and check to make sure that the queen is dead right?”

“Just enjoy the moment for now Enrique,” Tina said as she kept walking. “Wish I had sunglasses though,”

“Are you sure, I imagine sunglasses would make it pretty hard to spot the mimic that the three of you are walking towards,” Pickati told the three of us as he tossed a piece of rubble at one of the containers we were getting close to. We came to a stop as the container shifted. Without a word, Marvin brought forth one of his dolls that opened fire with its flame throwers.

“You guys deal with this, I’m going to go check on the queen,” I told them as the burning continued.

I turned back around and found that the building wasn’t as bad I would have expected. It was still standing, for now anyway.

Instead of blasting through the entire building, the charges had mostly blown a huge wall where the queen had been attached.

Speaking of the queen, I was pretty sure it was dead. Small chunks of it were scattered around the floor and the inside of the building. Even the largest piece was completely still, not even a trace of a pulse.

I gently nudged a piece of the stone skin with my foot as I felt a strange emotion welling inside me.

“This feels weirdly unsatisfying,” I said to no one in particular. I looked back and saw that Marvin was now burning a different mimic. It was covering a container next to a corridor that I imagined would lead to an exit.

“Hey Enrique, is the queen dead?” Tina asked as the Mimic died. I nodded back and started walking back.

“So now what?” I asked as everyone turned back to me.

“Honestly?” Marvin said as one of his ninja dolls climbed up to the top of the containers and started scoping out the area. “With the queen gone the only thing left is the cleanup. If Clancy can manage to rise up above her family’s history of being backstabbing little Brits, then we should have a mimic tracking spell in a day or two,” He said adding that last part without a moment’s hesitation.

“Okay about that,” I said, thinking about my words. The last thing I needed was to get involved further with this bizarre blood feud. “There’s one thing that I don’t get about this whole thing with you and Clancy,”

“I can answer your question but make no promise to not be as biased as humanly possible,” He said with an honesty that I found weirdly admirable. “Come on, we can talk while we get out of here and find the girls. I’ll have my surveillance dolls keep an eye out for that Sea monster so don’t worry about it,”

“So Clancy was trained by her grandfather right?”

“Correct,” Marvin answered as reached a turn in the labyrinth.

“And you learned it from a magic book right?”

“Technical term for that is a grimoire by the way,”

“Got it. So if both of your families lost the ability to use magic, then how the heck did you both inherit this magical blood feud?”

“Oh, the blood feud kept going even after we lost the magic. I myself grew up on bedtime stories of noble Mezavon heroes facing off against vile Bloodturner villains. From the little that Clancy’s let slip, she grew up on pretty much the same,”

I let out a sigh as I felt the starting of a headache.

“Okay changing the topic before a blood vessel bursts in my head,” I said as I rubbed the front of my head. “Any idea of what we’re going to do about the sea monster?”

“Well according to Marvin, before you got here that thing shrug off a full volley of bullets and take a face full of flame thrower,” Tina said before donning a look of guilt. “As much as I hate to say it, our best bet is to either throw the girls at it or wait for the Association’s fourth member to come back from her month-long vacation,”

“I still can’t believe that four preteens with no magical connections are our new go-to for dealing with supernatural problems,” Marvin said with a huff.

“As the Brother to one of said preteens, I would like to go on the record that I disapprove of ‘throwing’ my sister at anything, even if I have to admit the practically of doing so,”

“And I would like to reiterate that children were chosen out of sheer desperation and that the alternative was the death of potential millions,” Pickati added right before Marvin stopped us with a raised fist.

“We have incoming,” He said as we heard the sounds of approaching battle. Marvin suddenly turned to us all with a panicked look on his face. “Duck!”

We didn’t argue, all of us hitting the floor as the containers above us were scattered and broken apart. I glanced upwards and saw the not-lion flying through the air, Ana and Melodia both digging on of their feet into its side. They both screamed in unison as the three soared above us.

“Just die already!”


	19. Synchronized combat

Melodia POV

It hadn’t taken too long to find the first of the mimics. Mostly because I caught it in the middle of switching from one container to another. Seeing as how I had no real way of dealing with the problem at the moment, I moved on in search of Marvin.

I wasn’t here to solve the mimic problem anyway. I was the girl in charge of saving the guy who was.

That being said, it would be a lot easier if I wasn’t alone. Too bad Pickati and Enrique stayed back with the motorcycle. It would have been nice to have two extra sets of eyes on the world around me.

I kept my distance from the mimic and once I was clear of it, started running down the maze in the hope of finding someone.

To my annoyance, I didn’t find a single other person with all my running.

“Where is everybody?” I asked aloud as I approached a container t lean back on it.

I stopped right before I touched it, remembering how it was that mimics worked. I jumped back a bit and not a moment too soon. The Mimic’s flesh exploded outwards at me in an attempt to make me a midnight snack.

I glanced down at the space below the outstretched portion of the mimic.

I cast a spell, applying the concepts of triple gravity along with a few others on the spot. The effect was near instant, the mimic was sucked out off the container and forced into a puddle in the ground.

This left the Mimic trapped and vulnerable, and also gave me my first good look at this new threat.

It honestly reminded me of jelly, if there existed such a thing as white jelly. Every so often, the entire thing would squirm and rows of teeth would emerge in my direction.

Guess it didn’t like me all that much, which was fine in my book.

“I don’t really like you either,” I said as I pointed to the blob and unleashed a Gravity Crush. I watched with satisfaction as the Mimic was consumed in the mini black hole. “Now to find Marvin,”

As it turned out, there were other plans for the night. The second those words left my mouth, I heard a huge crashing sound come from somewhere deeper in the maze.

Seeing as how I just cleared the container next to me, I climbed on top to get a better look. One magic-assisted jump later and I was looking at what appeared to be a bunch of containers scattered everywhere.

I jumped over as quickly as I could, but not so quickly that I missed the sight of something pink running through the shadows of one of the hallways below me.

“Ana?” I asked as I landed on the container next to the pink figure who was indeed one of my fellow magical girls. I had to admit that she looked a bit more out of place than usual. Pink and white dresses are not typical attire found in places like this.

Then again was I really one to talk?

“Melodia?” The figure asked as she came out of the shadow, confirming her identity. She looked calm, with a hint of determination coloring her face. “Was that big crash just now you?”

“No, I was actually heading to it myself,” I explained before Ana nodded and took off running towards the crash. I followed suit after her.

I hadn’t known what to expect when we both arrived, but whatever was in front of me wasn’t it. I gulped from on top of the container and watched as a freakish lion squid tore into a mimic, ripping pieces off and stuffing them down its throat. From the way that Ana froze in place, my best guess was that she was thinking the same thing I was.

“This is probably the sea serpent thing that Marvin talked about over the phone,” I said as I dropped down next to Ana.

“Yeah, probably,” She said as I cringed at the way the lion squid sloppily tore into the mimic, getting the transparent blood everywhere. “Think it ate him?”

“Why would you say that?” I asked as I kept a careful eye on the lion squid.

“Because if it did then I have to give this thing an even bigger beatdown then the one I was planning on giving it,” She explained as her eyes narrowed at the Lion Squid which was finishing off the last of the Mimic.

“So we’re just starting from the assumption that we’re fighting it then?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well yeah, I mean fighting monsters is what we do,” She pointed out as I resisted the urge to point out several flaws in her reasoning.

“True, but this one hasn’t attacked us yet. In fact, the only thing we’ve seen it do is eat a mimic and we’re trying to get rid of those,” I said as the Lion Squid got up and started looking skyward. “Plus we don’t even know for sure if this is the sea monster that Marvin was talking about,”

“I guess you have a point,”

“Exactly, plus it’s not like it’s attacking us or anything,” I added as the Lion Squid kept its eyes upward.

“Oh yeah, if that thing was attacking us, this conversation would be over and I’d be fighting that thing with everything I had,”

“And I’d be doing the same right next to you,” I told her as we both smiled at each other.

A nice little moment, ruined when the Lion Squid looked back down right at us and opened a third eye in the middle of its face. All of its tentacles rose up and shot out a long claw-spoke out the end. After a moment, they began to slightly glow and steam. It growled at us and reared back, before suddenly letting out a roar and launching the tentacles out at us.

Ana and I split as the tentacles sank into the ground that we had both been standing in. I jumped right and she jumped left. The Lion Squid was quick, its tentacle spikes were already digging themselves out. Ana and I landed on the ground as the tentacle shivered. Half of them adjusted themselves and turned right at me, the other half aiming at Ana.

I reached back and grabbed the two containers behind me, hoping that neither were mimics. Luck proved itself on my side for the moment, as neither grew any teeth as I touched them.

In an instant, I lowered the weight of both and threw them in front of me as the tentacle claws came flying at me. I waited for the two to almost meet before canceling the weight change.

The tentacles punched through the container with ease, but the Lion Squid soon found that they were much harder to move around with them stuck inside. While the tentacles were stuck in the Containers, I took the chance to jump onto one of them.

A quick glance revealed that the other half of the tentacles were suppressed by Ana’s shields.

A bit of training had gone a long way with Ana. The lone flat shield from before was gone. In its place was a bunch of smaller shields that Ana could shape into almost any shape she wished.

In this case, the shape was a maze that forced the Tentacles to tangle around and get stuck in a knot.

With my half of tentacles trapped inside the container and Ana’s half trapped in her shields, my path was clear. I jumped off the container onto one of the outreached tentacles and ran along it towards the Lion Squid.

The monster roared as it tried to move around the tentacle I was running on. I smirked as I felt the tentacle below me twist and shake to no avail. I launched off once I got close enough, angled myself just right, and made myself as heavy as I could.

“Eat this!” I yelled as I crashed into the Lion Squid’s face, only for it to not even flinch.

I dropped to the ground without a word. The Lion Squid growled as it walked over me and glowed into my face. At some point, I noticed that my weight had returned to normal. I hadn’t done that, it had happened on its own after I made contact with the Lion Squid.

I rolled out of the way as the lion Squid lunged down at me. I tried to ignore the wet squelching sound as I got to my feet and strategically and coolly withdrew.

And by that, I mean that I ran as fast as I could towards Ana.

“Ana, we need a new plan,” I said as I heard the containers I used to catch the tentacles get ripped apart. With the other half of the Lion Squid’s limbs free, Ana’s shield trick wasn’t going to be enough anymore.

She grunted as she tightened the knot of caught tentacles as much as she could. Once that was done, she dropped the tentacles. The Lion Squid roared in anger and started charging after us, slowed down a bit by the tangle of libs in its way.

I looked at the Containers on either side of us and made them both weightless.

“Let’s go,” I told Ana as we started running, the containers lifting above us. I kept an eye behind us as we ran down the corridor, waiting for the right moment. The Lion Squid approached the spot, and I dropped the containers on it with all the force I could muster.

Not a single scratch, not even a bruise.

Although I guess a bruise would be pretty hard to see with the blue skin and all.

“Well at least it’s pinned,” Ana said, reading my mind, or maybe just looking at the unharmed skin of the Lion Squid. Marvin already told us that this thing was bulletproof, but I had a way around bulletproof skin didn’t I?

“Gravity Crush,” I called out as I lowered the mini black hole onto the Lion Squid.

That should have been it. The invincible monster crushed underneath the impossible gravity. The strongest skin in the world would protect against that.

So it stung fierce when the skin didn’t have to. The second the sphere touched the skin of the monster, it vanished into nothing.

“Please tell me that you felt really guilty about hurting the monster and got rid of the spell on purpose,” Ana started backing away as the Lion Squid began to rise underneath the containers.

“Oh, I wish,” I told her as the Lion Squid threw off the last of the containers and roared.

Neither of us needed to say a word, we just ran, the Lion Squid on our heels

What followed was a game of cat and mice as the Lion Squid chased us all throughout the maze of containers. At first, I was half worried about the mimics, but as we ran I kept on spotting them. Each time I did, they were running away from us.

Well, they were running from the Lion Squid, but that thing was right behind us so it was pretty much the same thing. While we ran, I fired off a few more spells at the thing. Ana did here part and threw some shields behind us too.

Nothing we did helped.

“Okay new plan,” I told Ana as we turned the corner. “This thing has unbreakable skin and is immune to magic,”

“Yeah I can see that, how does that help us kill it?”

“Well, have you ever heard of the Nemean lion? It’s was a monster in Greek mythology that also had unbreakable skin,”

“So how’d that one die?”

“Heracles ditched the weapons and just punched and wrestled it until its inner organs were jelly from blunt force trauma,”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“We punch and kick this thing to death,” I finished her thought. Just in time too, as we turned a new corner and found a dead-end.

Perfect.

A few moments later, the Lion Squid arrived at the dead-end only to find it empty of any magical girls. It raised up its tentacles in preparation for something, only for Ana and I come at it from above.

We moved as one as we flipped in the air and delivered twin ax kicks to the Lion Squid’s sides. It let out an ignoble yelp of pain as Ana and I landed and gave the same spots a pair of spin kicks. Before, when I had tried to attack the Lion Squid, I had been relying on the force of my increased gravity to do damage. Increased gravity that got undone the second I touched the thing.

Not here, the only thing at play here was the increased physical abilities that all four of us shared.

The tide had turned. We were no longer running away from the big bad monster. We were doing damage and I could feel the first signs of victory course through me.

Several minutes later, those first signs were still the only signs I saw.

Even after unleashing an onslaught of hits on this thing, it refused to go down. No matter what we did, it just got back up without a fuss.

Needless to say, Ana and I were shaking our fists in rage as we saw the lion Squid crawl out from the fourth shipping container that we had used to try and crush it.

“On three?” Ana asked to which I gave a silent nod. We ran up to the Lion Squid in unison and delivered a pair of uppercuts. The force of both of our hits was enough to send it flying. We jumped after it, spinning in the air until we were both flying through the air heel first.

Our feet crashed into the Lion Squid’s belly as we let out a yell.

“Just die already!” We both cried out as the three of us flew through the air.

As we neared the end of our flight, Ana and I jumped off the Lion Squid. Our kick off sent it flying back just a little harder as it crashed into the ground.

“So that’s where the two of you have been,” I heard a familiar voice say from behind us. I turned around and saw that not only was Enrique here, but so were Pickati, Tina, and Marvin. I smiled and said the first thought that came to mind.

“Marvin, you haven’t been eaten by that weird Lion Squid thing,” I froze as I took note of what I just said. I wondered for a second how red would go with my black and purple outfit. With how red my face felt, it felt like an appropriate question.

“Yeah, how are we doing on dealing with said Lion Squid monster?” He asked, thankfully ignoring the rest of what I said.

“He won’t go down!” Ana cut in with a yell. “It’s immune to magic or something and nothing we do to it breaks its skin,”

“Honestly our plan so far has just been to try to kill it from the inside with blunt force,” I admitted as the Lion Squid rose from its spot and growled at all of us. “You know Nemean Lion style,”

“And how’s that been working out?” Pickati asked as we all started walking away from Lion Squid. Ana walked the slowest, staying in front to throw out a shield if it was needed.

Turns out it was, as the Lion Squid suddenly threw out all of its tentacles at us at once. Ana Screamed before calling out her shield to protect us.

That scream might have been the luckiest thing that happened that night. It bought the Lion Squid enough time to get its tentacles past the point where Ana was making her shield.

The shield appeared, severing some of the tentacles and causing them to drop to the floor.

The Lion Squid screamed as all of its tentacles reared back.

“It cut through?” I asked as the Lion Squid drew its severed tentacles close to it.

“Remember how I always say ‘Magic has rules; Light Magic has guidelines’? The ability to ignore magic resistance is one of said guidelines,” Pickati explained as the Lion Squid roared at us again.

A fearsome sight that would have worked better if I couldn’t see it backing up from us.

“I have to say, I’m almost impressed,” We all looked upwards and spotted a slim figure standing on top of the shipping containers. “You actually managed to hurt my baby boy,”

The figure jumped down and came into the light.

She was a pretty normal looking lady. A bit pale, with short black hair that came up to her shoulders and ruby red lips. She wore a long plain red dress that felt weird to look at for some reason. She gave us an amused, toothless smile as she walked over to the Lion Squid.

“Oh did the bad little girl hurt you darling?” She asked as she began to stroke the Lion Squid’s head and neck. The monster actually began to purr as its many tentacles relaxed. “Don’t you worry darling, they’ll all be dead sooner or later,”

We all tensed up at those words. She must have noticed because she let out a gentle chuckle.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to kill any of you right now,” She explained as she gave us a wide smile, showing off her teeth.

Included in those teeth were two long fangs.

“A Vampire?” Tina asked, sounding more freaked out then I had ever heard her sound before.

“Well I guess some of you have done the reading,” She said with a laugh. “When I sent my little pet to this city two days ahead of me, I never would have thought that he’d attract the attention of so many Magi, and such young ones at that,”

She leaned back onto the Lion Squid and started rubbing the top of its head again. “At least that Mimic Queen I sent with my baby boy’s been busy. I counted at least four big ones on my way here,”

“You where the one who brought the Mimics?” Marvin asked with a gulp. The Vampire just gave him a dismissive wave.

“Well of course I did, my darling has to eat after all, and Mimics are his favorite treat,” She said as she smiled at the monster. “But enough distractions, I have something here to do,”

She got up and walked towards us. She smiled at us before two large bat wings grew out of her back. A swarm of bats grew from out of her dress and started fluttering around her.

“My name is Winnifred Sauer the Landless, spawn of Alexander Imaltos the Blood Duke of Boston. Defenders of North, South, and Central Palm City, under my rights as a superior life form, I stand here to declare my intention to take this city as my own domain as a Blood Countess,”

The vampire gave us one last amused smile before tendrils erupted from her dress, consuming and absorbing the Lion Squid. Before any of us could do a thing, the dress consumed her as well.

A few moments later, a bat the size of horse flew off into the night.


	20. Let's talk about Vampires

When we contacted everyone else about what had happened down at the port, we hadn’t expected a frantic call from Clancy asking if the vampire had declared a challenge or something called a ‘night of blood’. After a bit more prodding, we figured out that it was a ‘challenge, and Clancy commanded us to meet her at the café in half an hour.

We were all tired and just about done, but she sounded urgent. She was also a hemomancer so she probably knew stuff about vampires we didn’t.

Still, it didn’t justify making us wait for her at the café for several minutes. Everyone else was already here, the main group having gone there straight from the port while Claire and Rashell came on their own.

“Where is she? Marvin asked as he checked his phone. I did the same, seeing that it was ten minutes past when Clancy had said to meet up.

Just as I was about to speak up to agree, a foot burst the door open. Clancy walked in carrying a mountain of paper, books, graphs, and charts.

“Will someone other than Marvin come help me with this?” She asked, reaffirming the blood feud. “All this stuff is really heavy,”

Claire and Rashell ended up being the ones who helped her out, taking some of the paperwork and setting it on the table next to the booth.

“Sorry about that, needed to grab some extra material,” She explained as she started sorting some of the paper she brought. She grabbed some sort of stand and stood it up. “Okay, so vampires. Please hold all question until the end,”

We all looked around at each other, shrugged, and settles in for the presentation.

“So first thing’s first,” Clancy started as she put up the first paper. It showed a stick figure with fangs and its head separated from its body. She took out a small wooden rod from somewhere and used it to point at the beheaded figure. “The first, last, and only appropriate response to a vampire is to either kill it or do something that will help you kill it later,”

“Little harsh isn’t it?” Ana protested.

“Not even a little bit. Vampires are a scourge on this earth, and they all deserve death. They do nothing but kill, pillage, and play power games that result in the death of innocents,”

“Still feels a bit messed up to kill them. I mean they used to be people after all,” I said, partly because I was a bit uncomfortable with Melodia or the rest of the girls ‘killing’ anything. A position I found myself giving up as Clancy snapped her stick at me.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” She said as she took a handful of papers and placed them on the stand.

The first image was what I would imagine a stereotypical vampire would look like. That is, a pale young man with fangs wearing a leather jacket and pants.

“This is not a vampire,” Clancy explained. “This is the meat puppet that the vampire is riding in. This…” She flipped the paper over to reveal what was underneath. “is the vampire,”

In place of a full body, the image that Clancy showed us was missing a few bits. In fact, the only thing on the page were the skeleton, heart, and the major arteries. However, on second glance, there was something weird about the heart.

There was a weird growth around the heart, looking a little like a bat that had wrapped its wings around the organ. A bunch of earlier unnoticed black cables sprouted out of it, going along the blood vessels and presumably connecting with other organs that didn’t show up on the page.

I noticed a few that went right to the skull.

Clancy stepped up and started pointing at the heart with her little rod.

“A vampire is nothing more than a literal cancerous growth that lives by converting blood into the raw magic it needs to sustain itself. Oh sure, it might have access to the memories of the puppet thanks to a direct connection to their brain, but the original personality is gone,”

“They are incapable of true empathy. If they were, they would probably find an issue with needing to kill and maim to survive. To sum it all up, the only good vampire is a dead vampire,” Clancy said, making us think she was done until she turned the page to reveal some sort of pyramid chart.

“This is the basis of vampire society, its split into a top half and a bottom half. I’ll start with the bottom half,” She said as she pointed to a spot around the middle of the chart labeled ‘second generation’.

“The lower half of vampires are structured after how many generations away a vampire is to what is called a first generation vampire. I’ll explain what that is later because it’s not as simple as it sounds, but first the lower cast. The process is simple, a vampire partly drains a person of blood, leaving them in a weakened state. The vampire can from there infects this person, causing them to undergo a transformation. When all is said and done, the person will rise as a vampire a generation below their sire,”

She flipped the page again, showing us three vampires.

The first was the earlier leather-clad vampire, who was shooting finger guns at us for some reason. The next was a bit changed. This Vampire had long ears, gray skin, long red eyes, claws, and had its mouth open, showing off its fangs and long tongue. The last vampire was hunched over, its glowing red eyes giving away its mania. It was near naked, only wearing a pair of ripped shorts. It was almost bestial, I found it hard to believe that the body ever belonged to a human.

“As vampire generations progress, the vampire becomes more and more animalistic. Despite what appearances might lead you to believe, this does not come with an increase in power. In fact, each generation is weaker than the one above it,”

“When a vampire is killed, all of its children will know. What follows is battle for dominance, the winner of which will take the place of the old vampire. Their form will change to that of the generation before, and all of its spawn will battle to take its place,”

“Which leads us back to…” She said as she grabbed one of the earlier papers. “The upper half of vampire society, the blood nobility. All blood nobles are first generation vampires, but they are in no way equal. Just as the lower vampires are divided into their casts, so are higher vampires. Instead of being generation based, the blood nobility bases itself on a half-remembered version of old European nobility. Barons, then Counts, then Dukes, then Kings, and then maybe Emperor. No one’s sure if that one is real or not, but a few really powerful Vampire Kings have tried,”

“All Vampire nobles are either independent with their own territory which they control or are subservient to other Vampires nobles that do. That’s why this vampire is here. She wants her own bit of territory to herself, which leads into why she announced herself to us. Vampires are weird in that in order for her claim on an area to be respected, she has to defeat, humiliate, turn, drive out, or kill the city’s mortal defenders, which would be us,”

“Why?” I asked, not being able to fight the urge to know even after Clancy said to save the questions.

“Because Vampires are dumb and weird, and follow a strange combination of predatory instincts and half-remembered feudal codes from almost a thousand years ago that most of them weren’t even around for, that’s why!” She yelled.

“So all in all, we have to kill this thing before it starts growing its flock of freaks and we have a whole host of vampire trash to take out,” Clancy said, a bit more calm then she was a moment ago.

What followed was a brief explanation of which of the vampire weaknesses worked in real life.

Holy water and Symbols only worked on Vampires whose host had been pious in life. However, the effect was only psychological and doing it a few times would cause it to not work anymore.

Beheading didn’t kill the vampire, but it did sever its ability to puppet the body so it was effectively the same.

Fire worked perfectly, killing the vampire parasite and cleansing all traces of it.

A stake to the heart also worked, but it had to be oak and it had to hit the parasite directly. Speaking of plants, Garlic also caused vampires discomfort, but nothing that couldn’t be ignored with discipline.

Silver wouldn’t ward off a vampire, but wounds caused by silver weapons were impossible to regenerate from. Not sure how that one worked but okay.

Finally, the sun would turn a vampire to dust. But the reason as to why was weird. Man-made UV lights would also dust a vampire, but not as quickly, same deal with magically created sunlight. The two combined seem to do the trick though.

“Okay, so that should cover everything, any questions?” Clancy said as she finished her speech.

“Yes I have one,” Pickati said from his spot on the table. “Where the heck did these come from? They weren’t around back in the day, that’s for sure,”

“No one knows, and I wish someone did so I could find out, go back in time, and prevent them from existing,”

“How do you know so much about this anyway?” Claire asked as she eyed the huge amount of information on the table.

“The Bloodturners are a family of Hemomancers, and those come in two types. The first are those that are drawn to the Vampire’s ability to convert blood to raw mana at a ludicrous efficiency. The second are the families that spend a large chunk of their children’s formative years making sure they understand that research into vampires is a terrible idea. A good chunk of my magical education was spent on learning about atrocities committed by vampires and hemomancers that decided that they could handle the risks. This often included pictures,” She finished with a shiver as the room fell into a brief silence.

“Where do first generations come from?” Melodia asked, breaking the silence and causing everyone to turn to her. She froze up before finishing. In a slightly shakier voice. “If… if vampires turn people into a vampire of a lower generation, then were do first generation vampires come from?”

Clancy sighed as she took a seat, not meeting us in the eyes.

“If someone is turned into a vampire while having a lot of magical potential, then they will rise as a first generation vampire, breaking the system. As such a good chunk of modern first generation Vampires are converted magi. It’s how the plague has kept itself going even after so many attempts at snuffing it out,” She rubbed her eyes in annoyance. “It also means that should anyone in this room be turned, they would become a first generation vampire without a doubt, and as a new blood countess, having a first generation vampire under her would be a great mark of honor for this vampire,”


	21. Let's board a boat

We left the café with a strategy. Over the course of the night, Clancy would work to blunt the vampire’s influence. This would mostly be done by working interference on any attempts for her to feed with the help of Claire and Rashell. Hopefully, they’d be able to keep the number of vampires to one while the rest of us got some freaking sleep.

Apparently, Vampires were dangerous enough that the idea of fighting them at anything but top shape was basically suicide. Worse than suicide if you thought about it. Instead of just lowering your side’s numbers, you also raised the number of vampires.

Melodia, Pickati and I spent most of the next day sitting around the house, doing a little magic training, and waiting for the night to come. At this point in the ‘game’, Winnifred would only become active at night, according to Clancy at least. Attacking during the day would break the ‘rules’ which we really didn’t want.

I glanced outside and saw the setting sun. It was time for us all to meet up. I gave Melodia and Pickati the heads up and we all headed out to a small park a few blocks inland from the dock island.

“From what I’ve been able to tell, she’s using the ship she came in on as base of operations,” Clancy explained to the assembled group of teenagers, preteens, and magical guardians. “There’s a bit of an issue though,”

Clancy threw a photograph onto the center of the table we were all standing around. On it was a large cruise ship docked on the island that we had met Winnie on last night.

“Are there any other people on it? Or are they all…” I asked as I tried to imagine what a cruise ship full of vampires would be like to deal with.

“No, she won’t have any other vampires on that ship. It ties back to their weird rule about conquering territories,” Clancy settled my fears. “Since this city is empty vampire-wise, she has to take it on her own, no help from her children allowed unless they were raised in the city in question,”

“And how did things go on that front?” Marvin asked as a bunch of his dolls did some weapons checks behind him.

“Good, we got lucky and spent most of the night bored,” Clancy answered.

“She spent the whole night in that stupid cruise ship,” Rashell whined.

“Which means that if she did infect anyone, it was someone on the ship,” Clancy figured. “And with only one night in port, there’s no way she’s had time to get any of them to rise. The only other thing she might have are thralls, and those are just hypnotized humans with no enhanced abilities,” She finished leaving me with a question.

“But she brought that Lion-Squid,” My sister pointed out, saving me the trouble of asking myself. “Doesn’t that break the rules? She brought help,”

“I guess that since it’s some sort of chimeric monster and not a vampire, it doesn’t count,” Clancy explained even as she rubbed the top of her head. “No the complication here is that we have to get onto that ship despite it being crawling with something worse than vampires. We have to get past New England tourists,” She said as we all felt a shiver go down our spines.

“Any ideas how exactly we’re going to do that?” I asked as I tried to think of a way to sneak onboard without getting caught. Other than using gravity magic to just jump the side of the boat, I didn’t really see a good way to do it.

“Well, our best bet would be to avoid them entirely… ugh, this would be so much easier if Lilly was back in town already,” Tina said as she eyed the ship. “But she’s not so we’ll have to make do,”

“I have an idea,” Marvin declared as he neared the table. “What if we don’t bother? Tina, if my dolls are in the right places, could you use them to hack the ship’s systems so that it registers a small fire?”

“Of course I can,” She confirmed.

“We set off the fire alarms, everyone evacuates the ship, we sneak onboard and kill the vampire, and we get out. A few hours later it’s discovered that it was all a technical malfunction,” Marvin finished explaining.

“What about the crew? They won’t evacuate in the case of a fire, they’ll be too busy trying to put it out,” I pointed out.

“That’s where things get tricky,” Clancy explained. “There’s no way that our vampire hasn’t gotten the crew under her thrall. We’ll need to fight our way through them… non-fatally!” She said, directing that last part at Marvin.

“Wait why are you yelling at me?” He said as he glared at his rival.

“I wouldn’t pull it past a Mezavon to use this chance to turn a few vampiric victims into corpse puppets,”

“The Mezavon’s haven’t made a single corpse puppet since the family was under the head of Josef the flesh carver, and he was deposed by his own son almost four hundred years ago,”  
He fired back. Clancy got ready to fire back when I clapped as loudly as I could.

“You two can argue about old family grudges later when there’s not a vampire to take care of,” I shot at the two of them before they both looked away.

There wasn’t much more to be said after that. We all quickly agreed on the method of sneaking onboard and soon we all headed to the port.

We set up a small base in a small little nook surrounded by the containers closest to the ship. We started by having Pickati and the rest of the guardians set up their little anti-mundane field while Clancy made sure that there wasn’t any mimics around.

We came up clear of mimics as Tina and Marvin set up their hacking station. A few of Marvin’s ninja bolls stood next to the pair as Tina worked something with the laptop she had brought. A short while and a few cable connections later, and the eyes of the ninja dolls were directly connected to the laptop.

We watched as the squad of dolls took off towards the ship under the cover of shadows.

Waiting around for Tina and Marvin to set off the alarm took longer than I would have thought it would. Fortunately, Tina proved to be a considering soul and gave us the occasional update on their progress.

“Okay, so everything’s in position, all I have to do is press this last button and we’re go,” Tina told us with her finger raised dramatically over the laptop.

The three girls, the guardians, Clancy, and I got in position. I looked back and gave Tina a quick nod. She nodded back and her finger descended on the button.

A loud blast of sound burst out from the ship as we saw a mass of movements on the deck. A trickle of people came down the ramps. It only took about a minute or two for the trickle to become a flood as the passengers were escorted off the ship.

“I’m surprised that everyone’s so calm…” Ana commentated as the flood of people came out onto the port.

“The alarm I set off is ‘small fire, please wait until we deal with the situation’ not ‘big fire, get the heck out,”. If it was then things would not be this calm,” Tina explained as she kept an eye on the screen. “Looks like most of the ship is clear, you guys are good to go,”

I looked over Melodia who looked back at the rest of us. The four girls nodded at each other and transformed. A few moments later, and our group was approaching the ship under the cover of shadow. We reached the edge of the water and watched as Melodia worked her literal magic. We all linked arms as Melodia pushed off towards the boat, floating us all towards the edge of the ship.

Floating over the water with all of our arms linked up Mary Poppins style would have felt a lot more magical if we weren’t on our way to fight a vampire.

I kept the thought to myself as we reached the ship. We all huddled together as Clancy took out what looked like a compact mirror. A series of lights appeared on the glass, dancing around a bit before settling into a repeating series of patterns that probably made sense to Clancy.

“Looks like she has a flair for the dramatic, she’s waiting for us in the ballroom,” She snapped the compact mirror shut before breaking away from the huddle and motioning for us to follow her.

We went up a series of stairs until we reached one of the upper decks. Most of the space was taken up by a large circular room, closed off by a pair of double doors. Clancy approached the doors and took out the mirror again. A few lights flashed and she gave us all a nod.

“She’s here, this is it,” She said as we all stood around the door. “How do you want to do this?”

“Well, we could…” I started to say before I was cut off by Ana walking forward and spin kicking the door down. “do that,”

We followed Ana through the door into the ballroom.

Clancy had been right about the flair of the dramatic. The vampire had, at some point, gathered all of the tables and chairs of the room into a giant pile. Surrounding the pile was a small squad of blank-eyed crewmembers who I guessed were thralls.

Sitting on top of the pile was the vampire herself. She gave us an annoyed sneer as she stood up on top of the pile. She grabbed a chair next to her and gripped it hard. “Do you know how much it cost to get a mimic queen that big? It took me years to save up enough to get that thing,” She explained as the chair cracked and broke apart. “What is my little darling going to eat now?”

“Don’t know, and don’t care,” Ana said, causing the vampire to let out a screech of rage. She took the two largest pieces of the broken chair and chucked both pieces at us. Ana quickly held her hand up and brought forth a shield that took the hit for us all.

“I am going to take my time and enjoy this,” She said as she looked down at the thralls below. There was a weird look in her eye and the thralls suddenly advanced on us.

And just as suddenly, they all stopped in place as they crumpled on the floor, the gravity under their feet increased just enough to do so.

“Good work Melodia,” Ana said as slapped my sister on her shoulder. The vampire let out a growl and locked eyes with her. She crouched forward and we all got ready.

We weren’t ready.

The vampire flashed towards us too quickly to see. She was right next to us grabbing both Ana and Melodia by the neck and throwing them back across the room. She flew after then, catching up to Ana before she reached the other end of the room. She punched Ana downwards into the floor as Melodia hit the wall on the other end of the room.

Claire and Rashell ran forward to join the fight as the Clancy, the guardians and I hung back. Not just because we weren’t fast enough to catch up, but because we had a new trouble to deal with. Whatever spell Melodia used to contain the rest of the thralls, it must have run out because the rest of the thralls were free to move around. And with the vampire busy fighting the girls, the thralls went after us.

I gulped as I brought up my fists and got ready to fight off the mind-controlled crew members.


	22. Vamp fight

I wondered for a moment just how exactly I had gotten myself into this situation. Just a little while ago I was just a normal American teenager. Now I was fist fighting a vampiric thrall wearing a sailor suit. I ducked underneath the clumsy haymaker that he sent my way. Getting turned into a meat puppet hadn’t done some work on whatever brawling skill this guy had.

Well either that or he had been a terrible fighter to begin with. I countered with a quick uppercut before stepping back to avoid the second sailor that was about to jump at me. It overextend, tripping over and falling face-first onto the floor.

As I did I heard the sound of a wall breaking down. I looked over and saw the Vampire responsible for this mess leap out of the ballroom, promptly followed by my sister and her friends.

I quickly glanced over to Clancy who was keeping her own thralls at bay with what looked like a pair of knuckledusters made from what looked like crystallized blood.

“Hey, they won’t remember any of this right?” I asked her as a third Thrall approached me. I slowly backed up and let it approach me.

“I don’t think so, not unless they have some sort of latent magic potential,” She said before stepping in and delivering a few quick jabs to the thrall.

“Okay, good to know,” I told her as I angled myself and kicked the third thrall in the chest. It went stumbling back, crashing into the second thrall just as it was about to get back to its feet.

By the time they went down, the first one was already on me again. It jumped at me, making me dash back fully aware that my back was dangerously close to the wall now. I rushed forward and landed another punch on the thrall.

As he went down, I couldn’t help but make an uncomfortable comparison.

“Hey is it just me or does this kind of feel like…”

“Like what you would expect a zombie fight to feel like but without the biting?” Clancy answered for me before forcing a thrall back. “Uh, I’m going to have to research more non-lethal options, these blood knuckles aren’t going to cut it,”

“You really don’t have anything else?” I called out as I started brawling with the thralls again.

“I have a blood whip, but I’m not good enough to use it against multiple opponents without giving myself a dozen lashes,” She explained as she fought on. “How are Pickati and the others doing?”

I quickly glanced back and saw the four guardians doing their best with what they had against a few more thralls.

“They're all right,” I said, as the three thralls got up again. “Don’t you have anything that can take these guys out of the fight?”

There was a slight pause, broken up only by the sound of fighting.

“I might have something, but it’s going to be risky,” Clancy admitted.

“Risky for who?”

“Everyone involved. It’s only going to work on one thrall at a time, and I need that thrall immobilized the whole time I do it. If I get interrupted, or the thrall breaks free, then there’s a good chance they might die,”

“So not really worth it then?”

She didn’t answer back, honestly, she didn’t have to.

“So what was your plan when we boarded the boat then?” I yelled.

“To fight these guys one by one instead of in a giant group, so blame Ana on this one,”

I sighed internally and got ready to fight a battle of attrition with a foe that couldn’t feel tired.

Melodia POV)

For whatever reason, I couldn’t help but feel like it should have been raining. Happy that it wasn’t though, would have made this fight even harder than it already was.

I landed on the deck and looked up at the vampire standing on the railing of the floor right above us.

“Would you hold still?” Ana yelled as she jumped up to aim a punch at the vampire lady. The vampire moved in a flash, grabbing Ana’s outstretched arm. She pulled in before twisting around and throwing Ana to the ground.

A split second later, the vampire ducked under an air bullet that Rashell had sent her way. I fired off a quick spell that reversed gravity and fell at the vampire with my foot extended.

I saw her smirk and reach out to grab me like she had done to Ana.

At the last second, I stopped all gravity acting on my body and spun around, grabbing her outreached arm. The smirk on her face washed off as I adjusted myself and planted the bottom of both my feet into her face.

I kicked off from there to land behind her, my gravity acting as normal. I spun around a gravity crush ready to go when I saw the vampire wisely jump downwards out of range.

I ran to the ledge as I heard Ana let out a pained cry. I looked over the railing and saw Claire and Rashell fist fighting with the vampire who had a single heel on Ana’s back.

That close combat training was starting to pay off.

I gripped the rail and clenched my eyes shut. I had to think. Mostly about how to beat this vampire and not about the fact that this was the first time we had needed to kill a sentient being.

…

No, still thinking about that part.

I shook my head and slapped my face. “Focus Melodia, focus,”

We were still way too far off from dawn for that to be of any use…

But we did have another source of heat at our disposal.

The beginnings of a crazy plan formed in my head. It was a bit risky, and I was going to almost certainly get yelled at by everyone for taking risks, but it was better than nothing.

I just hope everyone forgives me afterwards, Rashell especially. They didn’t have to, but it would be nice.

“Get off her!” I yelled as I jumped down, trying to attract as much attention to myself as possible. If I wanted this plan to work, I needed Ana up and fighting.

“You again?” The vampire shrieked at me, knocking Claire and Rashell away and jumping up at me.

And in doing so, getting her foot off Ana, leaving her free to recover.

Just as planned.

We crashed in the air and sent punches back and forth as we descended back down.

My heartbeat felt like a rushing drum. In the back of my head, I knew I was the best hand to hand fighter in the group, and I was barely able to keep up with this monster. A part of me suddenly felt much worse about this plan, but it was still our best shot.

We crashed onto the deck and separated. I panted, trying to get my breathing under control. The vampire, of course, didn’t even look winded.

I saw out of the corner of my eye the other three girls start to rush in. Time to get this plan rolling.

I ran towards the group, stopping Rashell in place even as Claire and Ana kept going. The two looked back in confusion before the vampire forced all of their attention onto them.

“What are you doing?’ Rashell demanded with an angry glare.

“I have a plan,” I told her in a hushed and hurried tone. “I’m going to jump back in and keep the vampire occupied along with Claire and Ana. You are going to make a spell that’s going to roast that vamp nice and toasty,”

“But you know that my fire spell is slow, how am I supposed to hit her?” She critiqued.

“Don’t worry about that part,” I told her. “You focus on making that flame, I’ll take care of the rest,”

She looked a bit unsure for a moment before giving me a nod. I nodded back and ran towards the fight as Rashell started spinning the air in front of her.

I ran in, getting into the flow of the fight that all three of them were already starting to get into. We fought as one, a flurry of punches and kicks from three sets of arms and three sets of legs.

And yet somehow the vampire was still keeping up with it all, deflecting the blows she could and taking the hits that she couldn’t. We weren’t winning, but we also weren’t losing.

“Heat spinner!” I heard Rashell say as a nervous smile broke out on my face. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ana, Claire, and the vampire all stopped to look at the ‘fireball’ Rashell had gotten ready.

To call it a ‘ball’ might have been a bit of an error. It was two disks of air spinning in opposite directions, with enough space between to house the fire the air friction started.

Ana and Claire did the smart thing and cleared the area. I, on the other hand, dashed behind the vampire and grabbed it with both arms and increased both of our gravity’s as much as I could.

“Rashell, do it!” I yelled as I braced for the pain. I knew that Rashell could barely control that spell and that there was no way she would be able to stop the spell now that it was so far along. I had forced her into a situation where she had no choice but to risk burning a friend alive.

Time seemed to slow down as Rashell shot the disk forward. I could see the shock on her face, even as the vampire struggle to get out of my grip.

“Ge the hell out of our City,” I told the vampire as the disk crashed into both of us. I heard screaming… I wasn’t sure if it had been me or the vampire.

(Enrique POV)

All of the thralls suddenly fell to the floor, as though they were puppets whose strings had suddenly been cut. Before I could say anything to Clancy, I heard the sound of screaming come from outside the wall that the vampire and the girls had broken through.

“I’ll tack care of these guys, you go,” Clancy told me before I could say a thing. I nodded and ran as quickly as I could.

The sight in front of me was one that would be burned into my mind for as long as I lived. Ana and Claire were both frozen in shock. Rashell was kneeling, her hands on the floor and tears in her eyes. And in the center of it all, was an almost charcoaled vampire and a badly burned Melodia.

“That was it,” I heard a voice say before an aggravated chuckle rang through the air, freezing me to the bone. We all just starred as the burned parts of the vampire began to recover. Just as she finished her recovery, Melodia’s body slackened and she fell to the ground.

She never reached it, the vampire grabbed her by the back of what was left of her jacket and held her up to us.

“You mortals really are a riot you know that? You always make this big show of ‘your evil will never prevail’ and ‘we’ll win because of our humanity’. Well, look how that’s gone for you all so far. Down one fighter already and I didn’t even have to do the heavy lifting,” She spoke with an ugly sneer. “But I guess that kind of daring is pretty useful if pointed in the right direction…”

She brought Melodia up and gave her a quick sniff.

“Looks like this one is still alive. Well, alive enough to turn anyway,”

I could only stand and watch as the vampire lifted Melodia up and got ready to sink her fangs in.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Ana yelled as she exploded into motion. She almost teleported in front of the vampire and punched her in the face. The vampire shrunk back, letting go of Melodia. Ana took the chance to grab her and rush back to me.

“Take her,” Ana said as I accepted Melodia. The vampire had said that she was still alive, I could feel angry later, for now, I needed to make sure my sister stayed alive.

Burns… burns needed to be cooled down. The best way to do that was to run cool running water over the burn. But… there was just so much of it.

No, I couldn’t think that way, I took Melodia with me as the fight carried on behind me.

(??? POV)

Ana stood with both of her fists clenched shut. The vampire stood in front of her, one arm slack, the other rubbing her cheek where Ana had punched her.

“You hurt my friend,” Ana said, the fury evident in her voice.

“Well if you want to be technical about it, your green friend crying over there did more damage than I did,” She said as she pointed to the still kneeling Rashell.

“You hurt my friend!” Ana yelled, not caring one bit about the technical aspects of anything the vampire had to say. She ran forward and just started punching. The vampire let out a sigh as she started deflecting her blows around.

“Now this is just getting pathetic. You’re exhausted, the green one is broken and the blue one looks like she about to wet that skirt of hers, and we already know what happened to the purple one,” The vampire calmly told Ana as kept up the assault.

Eventually, she made a mistake, a punch overextended and too slow to take back.

It was all the vampire needed. She snatched the arm and flipped Ana onto the ground and pinned her down.

“This is why we win,” The vampire started. “Because we are the superior life form. Because we are the ones who stand above in the noble night while you crawl around in the dirt. Get used to laying down on the floor, it is the position that fate has ordained all your kind,”

While there are some that would feel that Ana had a duty as a human to dispute the vampires claim, she couldn’t care less about that at the moment. All of this talk of ‘fate’ and ‘superior life forms’ meant nothing.

All that mattered to Ana at the moment, is that she wanted to hit the thing above her really, really hard.

“Maybe I should turn all four of you girls. Have a full set and… what is that?” She said as she noticed a quickly growing light coming from the girl that she had crushed underfoot. “What is this,” She pondered before feeling a sudden burning sensation.

“By the time I’m done with you, the only thing left is going to be ash,” Ana proclaimed as a burst of light erupted out of her. The vampire screamed in pain as she was blown off Ana.

“This pain, I know it well!” She screamed. “The sun? Intruding on the holy night? What abomination are you?” She said as she pointed to a rising Ana, the other hand used to cover her eyes.

“The only abomination I see here is you,” Ana said as she got to her feet, the golden light around her swirling in a storm before suddenly beginning to collect near her right hand.

The vampire sneered at the display.

“I see that I have to retreat for now. We will meet on the field of battle some other…”

“Not happening! Prism shield!” Ana said as she pointed with her lightless hand. Five barriers appeared around the vampire in an almost cube, cutting off every direction but one. If the vampire wanted to leave, she would have to do so through Ana.

Ana clenched the light as it began to shape itself, flattening and lengthening until it became a broad sword made of pure golden light. She took the sword in both hands and dashed forward.

The vampire tried to raise its hands up to block, or redirect or do anything at all. It couldn’t. This light, this sun in the night, it pained her too much to move one bit. She could do nothing but watch as Ana reached her and drove the sword right through her abdomen.

“A thousand and one curses on you, Sun in the Night,” She chose as her final words.

“Melodia said it best, Get the hell out of our City,” She said before releasing one last burst of light from the blade. The golden rays spread throughout the vampire’s body, searing her from the inside until there was nothing left but ash.

The light faded, Ana’s sword fading along with it.

“What?” Claire spoke, as she cautiously walked towards Ana. “What was that?”

Ana looked down at her hands and found that she had the same question. She met Claire’s gaze and confessed. “I have no idea,”


	23. Recovery

I made my way across the boat with Melodia still in my arms, thankful for Melodia’s increased durability. Passing her under cool water and covering as much of her exposed skin in an aloe cream that I found in a medical station shouldn’t have worked as well as it did.

When I had first taken her most of her chest had been covered in red blisters, with her arms taking some lesser burns. She still had all of those burns, but they didn't look as severe as they did before.

I stepped carefully as I headed back to where Clancy and the rest of the guardians were waiting. I spotted them all standing at the door of the ballroom, the light behind them illuminating them.

“Enrique,” Clancy said as she saw me come out of the shadows. “What was with the lights…” She trialed, probably spotting Melodia in my arms.

She rushed over and I angled Melodia so that Clancy could see her better. Then guardians floated over and I could see the look of horror clear on Pickati’s face. He flew over to her, speechless, as the other three guardians floated back to give them room.

“Can you help her?” I directed at the Hemomancer. Clancy winced as she took a closer look, inspecting the damage.

“I don’t have any spells that can cure burns,” She explained as she leaned back. “Cuts, bruises, those I can heal. But… I do have ways of boosting her body’s natural healing ability. I’d have to get here to my house to use the equipment there though,”

“Then let’s find the rest of the girls, get off this boat, and head over there,” I said simply as I heard three sets of approaching footsteps. I turned as all three girls rounded the corner and stopped in place at the sight of Melodia.

“Melodia!” They all yelled at once as they rushed up to me. I backed off a bit so that they wouldn't swarm her. They got the message, stumbling a bit as they slowed down.

“Is she okay?” Rashell asked looking the most distressed out of the three of them. Considering that she was the only one of them that could create fire, I could imagine why.

“She’s stable, but we need to get her back to my house for treatment,” Clancy chimed in. “With that huge lightshow you girls made earlier. We probably don’t have much time until someone comes to investigate,”

“Lightshow?” Ana asked before shaking her head and changing the subject. “But how are we going to get off? We only got on with…” She trailed off as she looked down at Melodia.

Oh right… we got on the boat using Melodia’s magic. We would have to find a new way off the… Is that one of Marvin’s ninja dolls?

“Marvin?” I asked as the doll approached and motioned for us to follow it. We all did so, Clancy only going after a hard glare from me. After a bit of walking, we reached a lifeboat hanging off the side of the boat. Onboard are the rest of the ninja dolls.

I gave Clancy a preemptive glare this time and she got on without a fight. I held Melodia close as the dolls began lowering us into the water below.

Marvin was nice enough to have the dolls row us all back. We got off the boat next to the spot where Tina and Marvin where waiting.

“Let’s get her loaded up in my van. It'll be faster that way,” Tina said the second we saw her. Marvin must have told her about Melodia’s state. She helped me get her onto the van as Clancy got into the passenger side upfront. Pickati flew in, intent on coming with us. Marvin walked up to me before I got on and gave me a quick nod before telling the rest of the girls to gather around.

“I’ll make sure that your motorcycle makes it back home in one piece. You go take care of your sister,”

I almost asked him why he isn't coming with when I remembered the traps around Clancy's house. I give him an affirmative nod before he led the rest of the girls away.

I got into the van and, trying not to let my thoughts about Melodia overwhelm me, tried to take it in.

I had never seen the inside of Tina’s van before, and I was a little taken aback at how comfortable it looked. A ceiling light illuminated the inside, giving me a good look. Lining both sides of the van’s wall were a pair of benches, each covered in long sofa cushions and looking more like a couch than a car seat. Above both rows were long windows with currently closed curtains. Upfront was the driver’s and passenger’s seats, a space between the two allowing for the driver or passenger to head back here with no issue. There was also what looked like a small table between the two rows of seats for some reason.

I sat next to the spot where Melodia was laying down on the couch, keeping her steady as the car started as we drove off. Pickati had taken a spot on the table, watching Melodia with a strange look on his face. I couldn't tell what he was feeling.

I wasn't sure that he knew either.

One long, silent ride later, I was carrying Melodia into Clancy’s house. Tina hung back as Clancy led us through her house to a room into the back. It reminded me a bit of a sterile clinic, with the exception of all the blood-filled vials around the room. I opened my mouth to ask Clancy something, only for her to shush me as she washed her hands and put on some gloves.

“Lay her down here,” Clancy told me as she motioned to the bed. I set my sister down as Clancy approached with a small syringe and a bag of what looked like blood.

“What is that?” Pickati asked, speaking for the first time since he had seen Melodia.

“Healing blood. Boosts metabolism and causes the body to speed up its natural healing processes. Made from my own blood and modified to be perfectly safe for any and all blood types,” Clancy explained as she began to fill the syringe with blood.

I let out a held breath and made a decision to trust Clancy unconditionally at this point. She was the closest thing we had to a medical professional.

Despite being like 15, and not having any formal medical training.

Now that I think about it, this whole thing really is a ramshackle operation, isn't it?

“You can take a seat,” Clancy told me as she carefully inserted the syringe into Melodia’s arm. “Your part is done. I won’t tell you to relax, but you should get at least some rest. Let me handle this part,”

I did as she said so and started watching Melodia, hoping that she would recover.

“And that’s it. The only thing to do now is to wait,” Clancy declared as she took the syringe out. “I’m going to go look through some of my old clothes to see if I have anything that will fit her. Keep an eye on her and call me if anything other than skin repair happens. It shouldn’t but now you know what to do just in case,”

With that, Clancy let the three of us alone in silence.

Over the course of the next hour, I saw a miracle. The skin returned to normal before my very eyes. By the time Clancy walked back in with a small bundle of clothes, Melodia almost looked like she was as good as new.

“This is amazing,” I told her as I watched a patch of raw pink skin visibly darken to her normal hue.

“Well don’t get used to it,” He murmured in annoyance. “I only just learned how to make this stuff half a year ago. The process to make healing blood can only be started once a year, and the process itself takes almost two months. The stuff running through your sister’s veins right now accounts for almost my entire stock,”

“So no miracle healing after this?” Pickati inquired.

“Not until I can drain my blood onto a rune-carved stone bowl under the night sky of the winter solstice,” She explained, giving me far more detail than I probably wanted.

I was going to ask her if I really needed to hear that when I heard a low groan coming from Melodia. I looked down and saw Melodia’s eyes slowly open.

“Did we get her?” Melodia chooses as her first words after almost dying.

Pickati and I just looked at each other and sighed.

“She’s dust,” Pickati explained, getting a smile on Melodia face.

For a second, I was tempted to ask her what happened. But it wasn’t important for now, I could learn later. After all, what could Melodia possibly say that could change my attitude towards this entire situation?


	24. Final clean up

“You let yourself get burned alive?” I yelled at Melodia who pouted and avoided my eyes. Everyone else in the café looked unsure of what to think about the revelation that getting horribly burned was all part of Melodia’s plan.

The fact that we had postponed this meeting to the following day to give her time to recover wasn’t winning her any favors either.

“It sounded like a good plan at the time,” She muttered before looking up at the ceiling of the café. “But we killed the vampire though, and Clancy did say that killing it was our first priority,”

“Don’t you put that stupid on me!” Clancy snapped at her while crossing her arms. “Should have just let you heal naturally instead of wasting my miracle healing blood,”

“It is distressing that we’re down such a powerful resource,” Pickati said from his spot on top of my head. “I can’t believe you did something so reckless. I’m not angry, just vastly disappointed,”

Melodia actually flinched at hat last part. My anger at her aside, I understood completely.

“What else were we supposed to do?” She argued back, the wind in her sails looking much weaker.

“How about making a plan that doesn’t involve tricking one of your friends into thinking they burned you alive?” Rashell exploded as she smacked both of her hands off the table and got to her feet.

“Well it’s not like I’m mad about it or anything,” Melodia said before getting cut off.

“No,” Rashell declared. “You don’t get to make a funny callback to something that happened a few days ago and have us be good,”

Rashell glared at Melodia before yelling, getting out of her chair and storming out of the room.

“Rashell wait,” Melodia called out before getting up and following after her.

“Is anyone going to go after them?” Marvin asked as the pair left the room.

“No, I think it might be best to let them sort it out themselves,” Ana judged from her own seat, her Guardian sitting on the table in front of her. “We can always fill them in later,”

“Speaking of,” Marvin said, trying to steer the topic back to where it had been before Melodia talked about getting herself set on fire. “What happened after that? I didn’t have any dolls watching the fight, so I didn’t see what caused that giant burst of light,”

I noticed Ana fidgeting a bit her chair before telling us the rest of what happened on the ship. We all sat in silence as she explained how strange it felt to use those powers.

“I still don’t know what that was,” She explained as she looked at her hand. It didn’t feel like my normal magic, but at the same time it kind of did,”

“Light and Dark magic’s are the strangest and esoteric of magic’s,” Her Guardian explained. “The best explanation that I can give you is that your desire and need to kill the vampire were both so strong and in such synch, that your magic responded to it… maybe,”

“Well, can you do it again?” I asked as I leaned forward. Ana shook her head.

“I tried yesterday, but I can’t figure out how to do it again,” She told us as she tightened her hands into fists. “The vampire may be dead, but that pet monster of her’s is still out there. Having a sword made of light will probably come in handy when fighting it,”

“Oh don’t you worry about that,” Marvin explained as one of his ninja dolls got on top of the table. “I found the monster sleeping in the hull of the ship after you all got on board. I had a doll watching it the entire time,”

“So what did it do?” Clancy asked. “We already had our hands full with the thralls and the vamp, I don’t even want to know what would have happened if we had to add some sort of vampiric beast to the list,”

“Luckily for us, it spent most of its time sleeping and regenerating the damage it took from its fight with Ana. Good timing on the vampire killing, by the way, it had just finished healing and was waking up when you turned the beast’s master into ash,”

“Let me guess, monster died when the vampire did?”

“Pretty much. Guess she didn’t want it living without her,” Marvin guessed. “So the only big threat left are the mimics,”

There was a weird pause at the table as we all looked at each other.

“Anyone else completely forget about the mimics after all this chaos with the vampire?” I confessed. I got a round of agreement from pretty much everyone but Pickati, Marvin, and Clancy.

“The tracking spell for the mimic is pretty much done,” Clancy said as she rubbed the back of her neck. “So mopping up the rest of the mimics is going to be more chore then ordeal. Especially with the queen dead,”

“Better go through those quick before someone gets hurt,” I said which earned a nod from everyone.

“Alright, there’s just one more problem to talk about,” Marvin said as a sudden chill filled the room. He looked at us all and rolled his eyes. “Guy’s we can’t not talk about it,” He argued.

“I know but it’s nice not to talk about,” Ana shot back.

“I for one, am fine with ignoring the elephant blocking my through the living room,” Claire added.

“Marvin’s right, we can’t just ignore it forever,” Pickati explained.

The ‘it’ that we were all talking about was a news report that we had all seen earlier today. Video footage that someone had taken from docks of a pillar of golden light erupt from the deck of the cruise ship. Add in the exploded building from the night we fought the monster and the small handful of people that the mimics had eaten and the result was plain to see. The conspiracy theorists were out in force, and a small handful of them were getting creepily close to the truth.

“We’ve been able to keep most of the supernatural phenomena from affecting the mundane world of the city, and you girls have done pretty much the same with those fake dolls,” Marvin said as he looked at the ninja doll standing on the table. “But all this in just a few days may be too much even for us,”

“But what are we supposed to do about it,” I asked.

“Well, the honest answer is to just work extra hard to make sure the masquerade stays up for the next few weeks before this whole thing blows over,” Tina told me.

“Will it blow over though?” Ana questioned.

“You would be amazed at what people can forget about given enough time. Remember when the water in the whole city shut off all at the same time?”

“Not really, I mean I remember it happening but no one really talks about… oh, I get it,”

There was a bit of a break in the conversation

“This all would have been so much easier if Viti got back here already,” Clancy finally said to break the silence.

“Who’s…?” I started to ask before a dark shadow appeared in the wall of the café. Claire, Ana and I all got up, and all of the guardians rose to the air. I noticed that Marvin, Clancy, and Tina all looked strangely calm, so I didn’t do much else.

The shadow squished and stretched for a bit before flattening out onto the wall. I was about to ask what it was when a door shaped section of the shadow swung loose. Emerging at the same time was a leg that looked like it had just kicked the door open.

“Goodbye Witch World Hello Human World!” A voice sang as a figure in a black cloak swaggered through the portal. “Ugh, you three would not believe the time I had,” She said as she walked towards a bench. She grabbed the top of the bench and jumped over it to sit down. She placed her elbow on the table before looking at us for the first time. She slowly turned from me to Claire, to Ana, to the guardians, before turning to the three people who she apparently already knew.

“Why are there two small children here?” She asked as Clancy got up and walked over to the new girl.

“Viti,” She said as she grabbed the girl and pushed her hood back, revealing a girl around my age with bright green eyes and raven black hair. “You have no idea how much you missed,”


	25. Home Alone

“And you’re sure that you’ll be okay?” My mother asked Melodia as I watched the pair from the couch. My dad was off to the side, trying not to cry.

I mean, I kind of get it. Melodia usually stayed home from field trips. Due to her ‘troubles’ with talking to people, she was always too nervous to go on them. Plus she claimed that she didn't really have any friends to enjoy them with anyway.

After that stunt she pulled on that vampire a few weeks ago, it was starting to look like this one would be the same.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, she was in trouble with her friends after that fight. But after teaming up with them for two doll fights and several mimics hunts, the girls had managed to bury the hatchet.

It was a bit annoying that none of them would tell me how exactly said burying had happened, but if it got my little sister her friends back, then I guess it was fine.

So with money submitted at the last moment, this week’s doll dead deader than dead, and her bags packed, Melodia was saying her goodbyes to Mom before dad took her to the bus station where all the kids where getting picked up.

I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at my Sister.

She just looked so happy, with her big purple backpack, her black luggage bag, and a red and yellow baseball cap with a prominent pair of rabbit ears.

Maybe one of the things that helped the girls make up was the excitement of getting to go to Livney World for their end-of-year field trip. They were even going to get to spend the night in a hotel.

Mom and I waved the pair goodbye as they drove off, Pickati probably doing the same from the window of Melodia’s room.

“Are you sure that you’ll be fine on your own?” My mom asked I sat back down on the couch next to a pair of packed bags. Mom and dad had been under the impression that I was going to go on the end-of-year trip too, and had planned their own little mini-vacation to take advantage of the empty house.

“I’ll be fine, it’s only for two days. You guy’s will be back before I even notice,” I reassured her. She gave me a big hug before sitting down next to me and turning on the TV.

“I can’t believe you managed to talk your father and I into letting you stay by yourself,” She said as we watched the beginning of a movie with the little time we had. Once Dad came back from dropping off Melodia, the two of them would be off to the airport, and I would go and get a few more hours of sleep since both the bus and the plane were leaving before dawn.

A few hours later I was making some pancakes in the kitchen as Pickati floated in.

“That smells amazing,” He said as he sniffed the air. He almost looked like an old cartoon, the ones where the smell of cooked food was enough to make the character float off the ground.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to make pancakes,” I told him as I flipped the pancake over. “What do you want on yours? I’ve got maple syrup, jam, or dulce de leche,” He landed on the table and looked at the three containers I had laid out.

“I guess I’ll go with the dulce de leche, finally find out why you and Melodia are always on about it,”

“You will not be disappointed,” I told him as I stacked the pancake on a plate and got ready to pour the next bit of batter. “I’m almost done with them, just stay put and wait a bit,”

“You got it,” He said as he sat on the table in front of one of the chairs. “I can already tell that I’m going to miss having free reign of the house once your parents come back,”

“I’m already getting used to seeing you fly around the house,”

“I’m also going to miss being able to eat at the table,” He says as I finish the last pancake and split the stack between the two of us onto two plates.

“Here’s yours, want any help with spreading the dulce de leche?”

“I’m fine,” He told me as the knife began to rise. I poured my maple syrup as Pickati spread his choice via a combination of magic and his paws.

“So what’s your plan for the next two days?” He asked as we started eating.

“I figured I would take advantage and try to make some progress with my magic,” I told him before savoring the first bite of my homemade baked breakfast. “Aside from that, I’m not really sure,”

Pickati nodded sagely and took his first bite. I allowed myself a smirk as his eyes widened and his pupils dilated a bit. His tail and wings had straightened out and stiffened, and I could see that one of his back legs started to jitter. I could just imagine the explosion of sweetness occurring in his mouth at the moment.

“Wow, that is… sweet. Really really sweet,” He said after swallowing.

“Well, it is made from mostly milk and sugar. I think anyway. I wouldn’t know, my family always buys it canned,” I said as I cut another piece for myself. “Good though, am I right?”

“Yeah, really good,” He said with a smile, now mostly recovering from the first bite. “That first bite took me by surprise, but I should be fine to eat the rest. These are really good pancakes by the way. You made them really fluffy though,”

“What can I say I like the fluff,” I explained as I got to eating. Seeing that the conversation part was over, Pickati ate up as well.

As we ate, I noticed something about Picakti that I had never realized before. Something that I had just kind of ignored until now.

“Hey, Pickati?” I asked after we finished and as I picked up the plates to clean them. “How in the nine circles did you manage to eat a stack of pancakes that big and remain the same size?”

He gave me a confused glance from his floating spot.

“Was that an Inferno reference?”

Of course, that’s what he picks up on. I snickered for a bit as I got to cleaning everything up.

“Yes, it is, now answer the question,”

“Alright fine. One of the many intricate and interwoven spells giving me life allows me to convert calories directly into mana. If I understand correctly, Clancy can do the same with her blood,”

“Is it possible to learn this power,” I said in a brooding tone that earned my an eye roll from Pickati.

“Prequel references thank god. After the inferno reference, I was beginning to worry that you had actually risen to the level of a bacteria and developed a culture,”

“Not sure the Divine Comedy counts as high culture either though,” I fired back.

“It doesn’t but it’s a bit more classy than the adventures of the Starkiller clan. And as for your question, yes, but not in the way you think. The spell is something that has to be cast on a creature while it is still developing. Even if I taught it to you or your sister, you would only be able to cast it on fetuses or things like them,”

“Well, that’s a bit disappointing,”

“Look on the bright side,” Pickati promoted as he levitated a cloth and got to drying the plates that I had washed.

“I don’t have to worry about my sister eating us out of house and home and justifying it as mana converting,”

“Exactly,” He said as we both imagined what would happen if Melodia could eat whatever she wanted and not risk getting fat.

“We are never telling her about this power,”

“Agreed. Let’s just finish these plates, start your magic training and forget this conversation happened,”

I nodded and soon afterward, everything was cleaned up and I was sitting down on the couch in a lotus position.

“Okay, so you can maintain an internal gravity, shift your own weight from zero to one and a half times, create zones of slightly lower and higher gravity, and even managed a float spell on a small object. I think it’s time you learned something that I just know you’ve been waiting to learn,”

I tried and failed to bite back a smile from my face.

“Am I learning how to alter my gravity to stick to walls and ceilings?” I said as imagined myself standing on a wall, leaning with my back to the roof.

Pickati smiled back.

“That’s right. Learning to stick yourself to walls and ceilings is a vital step to being able to do it to other objects. Making heavy objects fall on people will be one of your primary tools for dealing with supernatural threats, so I wanted to teach this to you as soon as I felt you were ready,”

“Also it looks cool,” I added.

“Also it looks cool,” Pickati admitted. “Okay, so here’s the concepts you are going to need for the basic gravity shift spell. You need to apply in order, gravity, outer self, times one, and then comes the tricky part, you have to apply the concept of a direction,”

“How is that the tricky part?” I asked with a tilted head.

“Because your first instinct will be to use a direction relative to you. Let me give you an example, get up and stand next to the wall,”

I did as he asked, getting up from the couch and walking to the wall.

“Now point to the direction of the wall,” I did as he asked. “Now what do you think would happen if you tried to cast that spell with that direction?”

“Well based on your tone, I imagine that I wouldn’t go on the wall?”

“Oh no, you’d fall into the wall like you wanted, and then you would keep falling to the ceiling, and then you'd just keep going in circles,” He explained as I worked my brain to figure it out. I was pointing to the wall in front of me… in front.

“Because the direction I picked was relative to myself, it keeps changing. Gravity shifts to the direction in front of me, which keeps changing as gravity shifts,” I said as I figured out the explanation.

“Locking you in a loop until the spell ends,” Pickati finished for me.

“So I have to make sure that the concept I use for the direction is a specific direction unrelated to me,”

“That’s right. Based off the information I have, it's the hardest part of the spell. You have to completely divorce the concept of the direction from my frame of reference. I suggest trying to get the rest of the spell down first before you attempt it,”

I gave Pickati a nod before closing my eyes and following his directions.

First, my magic. It came to me quickly now, like an old friend who was always there, ready and waiting. I brought it up and began infusing it with the concept of gravity, a process that I was pretty good at now.

I held the ball of gravity magic in my hand, ready to be shaped by my will. I began the next step, applying the concept of my outer self. I already had a good trick for this. I imagined myself in an empty room. A camera floated around me, taking a picture of me at every angle. All those imagines condensed into one, becoming my concept of outer self.

Times one was the easiest, all I had to do was allow several images of ‘one’ thing happening until the concept of ‘one’ time emerged from it. I added it to the spell and soon all that was left was the tricky part.

“You’re doing it right so far. Keep going,” Pickati encouraged.

A direction…

I did my best to think of an absolute direction. I really did. I imagined the direction of the wall, trying to ignore my relation to it as much as I could. Once I was sure I had the concept realized, I added it to the spell.

“Did it work?” I asked Pickati who just shrugged and motioned for me to use the spell and find out for myself.

At first, it went well, I fell forward towards the wall. I smiled as I reached my hand out and caught myself, scrambling to my feet as the gravity shifted and the wall became my floor.

“Hey I… oh no,” I let out as I noticed that the gravity hadn’t stopped. Instead, the room was still turning, and in a few more seconds I was going to be standing on the ceiling. I made a dash to the roof and stepped on it as it became my floor. Seeing where this was going, I walked to the end of the ceiling and waited for the gravity to shift enough to put me back on the floor that I had started on. Once I was back to normal, I canceled the spell before gravity could shift further.

“See what I mean,” Pickati told me as he floated over to me.

“Yeah, that’s going to be tricky. Hey at least I have time to spare,” I pointed out as I walked over to the wall, ready to try again.

Two more failed attempts later, I heard a knock on the door. I glanced over to Pickati who descended down and took on his plushie form. I took a second quick glance at the room just to make sure that there wasn’t anything ‘overtly magical’ around before answering the knocks, which were slowly getting louder.

“Yes?” I asked as I unlocked the door and turned the handle.

“About time Erick, what took you so long?” Charlie asked, her hand up and ready to knock on the door if I hadn’t opened. “Listen I need you to do me a favor. You feel up to exploring a haunted house?”


	26. breaking and entering?

In the time since I walked in on my sister fighting a giant lizard monster, I had discovered that magical girls, monsters, spirits, magi, vampires, and witches were all real. I was honestly at the point where I was sure nothing could surprise me… with the exception maybe being aliens.

So when Charlie walked stood at my door and invited me to check out a haunted house, I had half a mind to just slam the door right then and there. The last thing I needed was to find out that ghosts were real.

But at the same time, if ghosts were real, did I really want to leave Charlie alone in a potentially haunted house.

No. The answer was no. charlie was a good friend and didn't deserve that.

So that’s how I ended up standing outside the most bizarre-looking house I had ever seen. To either side were simple one-story concrete houses with shingles and green lawn with palm trees, and all that normal south Florida stuff.

In front of me was a three-story wooden building with pointed roofs and a small tower with what looked like parapets at the top. The lawn was sparse, mostly sickly looking grass with a few bushes and the occasional sickly looking gnarled tree.

And of course, the whole thing was covered in black paint. It looked like someone had just ripped it straight out of an old monster movie.

“So this place just showed up overnight?” I asked as I gave Charlie a sideways glance.

“Overnight,’ She confirmed. “I just woke up one day and boom, it was right down the street from me,”

Now on the one hand, the proper response to a weird house appearing out of nowhere would be to grab every magi I knew and go in as a team. On the other hand I was pretty sure that Charlie was the only person I knew that was oblivious enough to the world around her to simply never notice the building before.

I gave the girl a second look and wondered if she had simply never come this way before.

I looked back at the dilapidated house as the memories of all my supernatural encounters ran through my mind.

“So standing out here is all we’re going to do right?” I asked as I shuffled the bag on my back, making sure that Pickati was in there. The little fox claimed that as there was no such thing as ghosts, as far as he knew. So if I did find one, at least I wouldn’t die without saying ‘told you so’.

Charlie blinked at my question before giving me a weirdly patronizing smile.

“Erick, really? You know me better than that,” She confirmed my fears. “Of course we’re going to check it out,”

I let out a sigh as Charlie walked nonchalantly towards the house. I followed after her, hoping that my meager magics would be enough to get us both out in one piece.

I felt a strange sensation in the air as we crossed the iron fence into the old yard.

“You feel that,” I whispered so that only Pickati could hear. I felt him rustle around my bag for a bit before poking his head out a bit.

“Yes, there’s something mystical going on in this house. It’s still not ghosts though,” Pickati added with a slightly smug air.

“Hey,” Pickati ducked back down into the bag as I looked up at Charlie who was already standing on the front steps to the house. “Are you going to pick up the pace or what?”

Seeing no way out of this that didn't involve leaving Charlie maybe for dead, I pressed on.

The door gave off a loud creaking noise as Charlie slowly pushed it open. It was dark inside, too dark to see properly with all the glare from the almost summer sun above our heads. Charlie gave me a quick nod before slowly taking a step inside. I closed the door behind us, trying not to make too much sound in the process.

If the outside of the house looked like it had been pulled right out of a classic horror movie, then the inside was pretty much the same. We had entered into a large room with a grand central staircase that led to a long hallway above us. The walls of the room were covered in green wallpaper with small white designs on them. The exception were four doors, two on each side, a single old portrait hanging between the two doors to the left of us, and the heavy black curtains covering the windows behind us. Aside from that, the room was pretty sparse, with no other form of decoration to cover the bare wooden floorboards below our feet or the plain ceiling above.

Charlie and I made a silent agreement and approached the portrait.

It was of a woman in what was probably her mid 30’s. She was dressed in a long black dress that came up to her neck, where a necklace of ruby red stones sat. Her face was calm, giving the painter a slight smile, framed by long black hair that reached past her shoulders. She was sitting down on a chair too large for her with a silver frame and red cushions. Hanging on to her lap was a little girl who could have almost been a clone of the woman, the same face, long hair and dress.

However, there were two pairs of objects that stood out to me in the painting.

“Whoa, you see those eyes?” Charlie asked unneededly. I gave her a bit of a glare, as if to ask her if she thought I was blind.

Both the woman and the girl who was probably her child had the same pair of almost glowing green eyes.

For some reason, I couldn’t help but feel that they were strikingly familiar. I combed through my memories, looking for a match.

“It’s a little weird though,” Charlie said suddenly, breaking me out of my attempts to remember where I had seen those eyes before.

“What is?” I said as I couldn't help but feel as though something was a bit off.

“Don’t places like this normally have tons of decorations and stuff laying around everywhere?” She said as she motioned to the rest of the room with her arm. “But the only thing here is this painting,”

“Maybe they took everything else with them when whoever owned this place left,” I offered as an explanation.

“But then why keep the painting here?” She said, shooting down my theory. “And how do you know that whoever lived here left?”

I let the silence of the room overtake us for a moment before I walked up to Charlie, the creaking floorboards making sounds that felt as loud got me as gunshots as I did so, and grabbed the front of her shirt with both of my hands.

“You never figured to check to see if the house was legally abandoned before we came in here?” I asked in a harsh whisper.

“Dude what is wrong with you?” the idiot said as she tried to get my hands off her.

“You can’t just go into people’s houses Charlie. It’s called breaking and entering,”

‘You seemed fine with it, like, ten seconds ago. Plus it’s fine, the door was unlocked so it’s not real trespassing,” I tried my best to ignore the sheer idiocy that made up the second half of her statement and focused on the first.

“Ten seconds ago I was under the impression that this was an abandoned property and that no one would care if we were here,” No one that wasn’t a part of the world of magic and fantasy that I had gotten recently wrapped up in anyway. So far, none of them really struck me as the type to contact the police to deal with a home invader. “We should leave now,” I told her as I started dragging her towards the door.

“Alright fine just… Did you hear that?” We both stopped as I listened for whatever it was that she heard. After a few moments I heard it too, the sound of someone walking above us, and slowly getting closer.

Someone was coming downstairs, and they would be here sooner rather than later. I looked at the door to the outside, suddenly looking like a distant star in the night sky. Even if we ran for it, there was no way we would be able to clear both the room and the yard outside in time. My eyes glanced over to the top of the staircase as the footsteps grew louder. I clenched my teeth as my sight lowered from the staircase, over the empty space beneath and back to the door to…

“That's it,” I said in a whisper as I dragged Charlie to a previously unnoticed space underneath the staircase. It was narrow, with just enough space that we could fit single file from shoulder to shoulder if we wanted.

Instead we pressed our back to the wall, my bag now hanging from my hand, as the footsteps grew even louder and I heard the sound of a door opening above us.

I waited in silence, hoping that whoever it was would leave, giving us a chance to do the same and never look back. I tried to lighting my breathing and focus on other things like the pale gloomy light that…

The light from outside was blocked by the curtains, there were no lamps or ceiling lights, or any other type of illumination in this room.

So why could Charlie and I see with perfect clarity then?

I gulped as I realized that I had indeed walked right into another supernatural encounter.

Well, I could call myself an idiot later. For now I had other things to worry about, like the sound of a tapping foot right above our heads. I held in a breath when I heard creaking floorboards and the sound of someone sliding down the side of the stairs.

There was a woosh of air followed by the sound of someone landing on the floor.

“These grindboots were so worth the price,” I heard a familiar voice say. I blinked twice before managing to connect it to a face, and in doing so, connecting it to the eyes in the painting. “Alright come on out, I know you three are hiding underneath the staircase,”

Charlie and I looked at each other as she mouthed the word ‘three’. I shrugged my shoulder, not trying to expose the magical flying immortal fox in my bag. I shimmied out of the staircase with charlie behind me and gave Viti a quick wave.

“Hey,” I said to the witch, not sure what else to say.


	27. Let's talk to a Witch about Witches

“Sorry for breaking into your house,” I told the witch even as the words like an idiot for doing so. “Good to see you again though,”

That part wasn't totally a lie. I hadn't seen much of Viti in the time since she had crashed our post-vampire-fight meeting. From what Clancy explained afterwards, she was a witch, and she did indeed attend our school, even if I had never seen her before.

I also hadn't seen her in the time since, despite being on the lookout for her particularly striking green eyes.

“Erick, you know her?” Charlie asked as she slowly emerged from the staircase.

“Erick? I thought your name was Enrique,” Viti asked, confusion clear on her face.

“It is, Charlie couldn’t pronounce my name when we first met and just decided to call me Erick instead,” I explained.

“Oh, so what are you doing here anyway?” Viti asked, looking a bit annoyed for what I could assume where obvious reasons. “I know I didn't tell anyone I was going to start living here, so how did you find me?”  
“Funny but not really that funny story about that,” I told her as I began to explain how Charlie had found the place and how I had gone with her to make sure she didn't die.

She walked up to Charlie as I finished explaining. Charlie leaned back a bit as Viti leaned forward with a neutral look on her face.

“What you did was stupid and reckless…” She said before breaking into a smug smile. “I like your style,”

“Thanks?” Charlie replied before Viti gave a quick nod and spun away.

“Ugh, I forgot how freaking dark this place is,” She said before she snapped her fingers.

The dark gloom that had covered the room instantly vanished, replaced by the normal amount of light you would see in any sort of normal home.

With the exception that there was still no visible source of light. I glanced over to the walls. Now that there was more light, I could make out the pattern on the walls. It turned out to be a bunch of little cartoon smiling skulls, which I guessed fit the image of what a witch’s house would look like.

“How did you do that?” Charlie asked as she grabbed onto my arm and started looking all over the room. My eyes widened as I suddenly realized that Viti had just used magic in front of someone with no knowledge of the supernatural.

“Do what?” She asked, not looking like she knew what Charlie was talking about.

“The lights. You just snapped your fingers and the lights just got brighter out of nowhere and… where is it coming from anyway?” She asked as she let go of me, her eyes darting around the room looking for a light source.

“Oh, that,” She shrugged like she was talking about an old table piece that no one remembered the origin of anymore. “Just a simple bit of light manipulation to make it less dark in here,”

“Light manipulation?” Charlie asked as I suddenly felt as though I should bring this conversation to a halt.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty basic bit of magic,” She said before I could make a shushing sound.

“Magic?” Charlie asked with a hint of interest in her voice.

“Well yeah, you’re a magic-user, aren't you?” Viti explained before I stepped behind Charlie and waved my arms in an attempt to get her to stop. Viti look at me then looked back at Charlie before a look of realization crossed her face. “Oh…”

“You just did magic…” Charlie said, trailing off at the end.

It was clear that we had a bit of trouble on our hands.

“Oh come on Charlie, I’m sure it was just a magic trick, you know, an illusion,” I tried to salvage the situation.

“But the lights…”

“Snap activated lights exist,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but where are they?” She argued back, her voice beginning to waver as she grabbed me by the shoulders. “Where are the freaking lights Erick?”

“Okay Girl calm down,” Viti said in a bored tone as she walked over to us and helped pry Charlie off me. “This is not how I thought today was going to go,”

“So what’s going to happen now?” Charlie asked before her eyes widened. “Are you going to make me disappear? Or wipe my memory? Or replace me with some sort of clone?”

Whatever Viti would have said to try and calm Charlie down, she didn't get a chance to say it. Instead, Charlie broke out into a sudden run to the door. “Erick now’s our chance,”

I glanced over to Viti and gave her a quick shrug. She sighed before looking over at Charlie who was almost to the door. Viti’s eyes glowed for a bit just as Charlie managed to get the door open.

A pair of shadowy hands rushed forward from somewhere behind us and grabbed onto Charlie’s shoulders, lifting her up and leaving her trying to run while suspended in midair. We both walked up to Charlie and waited for her to realize that she wasn’t moving.

Something that took an uncomfortably long time to happen.

“Okay, so if I promise to not harm you in any way for learning about magic, will you stop and let me explain some stuff?” Viti asked as the hands pulled Chalie back a bit so that Viti could close the door.

Instead of answering the question of the magic-user whose home she had broken into, and had her at her mercy, she started talking to me instead.

“How are you so calm about this?” She asked, earning an eye-roll from me.

“Just say yes to the nice girl who is currently floating you off the floor so we can explain properly,” I urged her.

She flinched back at me, betrayal in her eyes. She… oh my god was she actually… she was, she crossed her arms and started pouting like a small child ten years younger than her.

“Fine,” She said, her arms still crossed and her face still pouty.

“Finally, oh and you can just leave the bag over by the staircase Enrique. You can pick it up before you leave,”

I set the bag down as Pickati inched his head out and motioned for me to join them. I nodded back and left him there, hoping that he knew what he was doing.

Viti led us to one of the side doors, I walked while Charlie floated. As dumb as it sounds, I was just a bit jealous that our methods of motion weren't flipped.

One day.

“Alright just take a seat at the table, any place will do,” Viti explained as she took us into a fancy looking room. In the center was a fancy looking circular table covered in a red tablecloth with three familiar silver-framed and red-cushioned chairs surrounding it. The cloth had a purple diamond pattern running along the edge of the table, as well as at the very end. Lining the sides of the room were small wooden desks and shelves that contained books and other nicknacks, such as crystal balls, colorful stones, wooden artifacts, stone carvings, and metal trinkets. The wallpaper was still the same green with skulls that I had seen outside, which clashed a bit with the table in my personal opinion. Opposite the door we walked in through, there was a pair of large windows covered in heavy black curtains.

Once again I failed to find any source of light in the room.

We took our seats and I leaned back, surprised at how comfortable the chair was. Charlie sat up straight, looking around with an uncomfortable look on her face.

“Let’s get this over with,” Viti said with a heavy sigh as she glanced over to a second door that I hadn’t noticed before. It swung open as a small silver cart came through, a teapot and three cups on top.

The cart came to a stop next to Viti, who then levitated the tray and set the objects in front of her. She lifted the pot with her own hands and started filling one of the cups. Once it was full, the diamond pattern on the cloth began to spin, taking the cup with it until it stopped in front of me. Viti then did the same with the second cup, and once again the cups spun around until the one in front of me had moved to Charlie and the second one came to me. The same thing happened one more time until we all had a cup in front of us.

“Dear friends, I ask of you to join me for tea this fine day,” Viti said, sounding completely different. Gone was the causal girl, replaced by a formal young lady. I noticed that the light around us had started to wane and six blue candles had appeared in a circle around us. “I insist, put your troubles aside and let us talk. I promise to tell no lies and to tell no secrets, so won't you join me…” The candles lit themselves, letting off a soft glow jut strong enough for us to see the table and nothing beyond that. “In this, our witches’ tea party?”

Charlie and I both blinked. Unsure of what exactly I was supposed to do.

“Well… drink up,” Viti prompted.

Charlie and I blinked at each other.

“Why are you talking that way?” Charlie asked.

“A side effect of the ceremony,” She replied, with narrowed eyes and a slight frown. “Now drink the blasted tea and free my tongue from this idiotic speech,”

So she couldn't speak normally unless we drank the tea then. I took the cup and took a few sips as Charlie did the same.

My eyes narrowed as I felt the sweet presence of sugar mixed into the earl gray. All things considered, it was pretty good.

“Finally, I can talk like a normal person again,”

“What is all this,” Charlie asked as she looked around the darkened void it looked like we had found ourselves in.

“A witches' tea party,” Viti answered as she took a sip of her tea. “It’s old Witch magic, probably some of the oldest. So long as we remain seated, the ritual goes on. No witch may lie during a witches’ tea party and everyone is mystically prevented from revealing any secrets they are told during it. Also, while we all sit here, none of us can attempt any form of violence on any of the others,” Viti finished her explanation as I realized something.

“Can’t lie, can’t reveal secrets and a forced peace. It sounds like the perfect place for diplomacy,” I pointed out as I got a picture as to what this ceremony was usually used for.

“Pretty much, with how much magical power witches have to throw around, the best way to settle disputes is to usually just talk it out at a tea party,” Viti admitted.

“So magic really is real then,” Charlie said, looking at her cup and with a stunned look on her face.

“Oh right, better get to explaining,” Viti said sheepishly. “Yeah, magic is real, and in this world there is a special… race? Subspecies? People group? Who are naturally imbued with magic called witches,” She explained before glaring at the table. “Going to be honest, and not just because I have to, I have no clue what we count as nowadays,”

"So You're not going to turn us into newts or anything right?" Charlie asked with a carefully raised hand.

"Nah, that's my bad. The buildings supposed to have enchantments on it that kept non-magic users from noticing it. So when you guys walked in and Enrique explained how you noticed the building, I just kind of figured that you were both Magi or some other kind of magic-user.,"

"So what, did Charlie bypass your defenses or are they not working at all," I asked before Charlie could ask about Magi.

"No clue, I'll probably check it after we finish this up," She said with a nonchalant shrug that felt really inappropriate for the situation.

“So what kind of magic can wicthes do?” Charlie asked, focusing more on the cool thing in front of her then anything else. Of course, I kind of wanted to know too, so I leaned forward a bit waiting for an answer.

“Oh, we can do a bit of everything,”

What?

“Witch magic can pretty much do anything so long as the wielder has a strong enough will to do so,” Viti continued, unaware of the bulging vein that I could feel on my forehead. “Some stuff is harder than others and certain witches can be better at certain specific things but aside from that there are no real limits on witch magic,”

“Oh, do you have a specialty?” Charlie asked sounding amazed.

“Yeah, I’m what most witches would call a shadow walker. I can make a magical door between any two shadows I want and allow people to pass through them,”

“That’s so cool,” Charlie squeed.

“Yeah I know,” Viti said, way too proud of herself.

“So… question. If witches are real, then where are they?” I asked, trying to change the topic.

“Well we used to live among normal humans, but that didn't really always work out right,” She said, the implication of witch burnings going unsaid. “So a long time ago a bunch of really powerful witches got together and either created or made a portal to a pocket dimension we nowadays call the moonlit valley. It turned out to be pretty useful a few hundred years ago when magic began to dry up all around the world for some unknown reason. Nowadays ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of witches live in the valley,”

“Magic dried up?” Charlie asked as I settled in for the portion of the explanation that I already knew.


	28. A crowded reception

By the time we finished the tea party, Charlie had gotten a short crash course on general magic and we had both gotten more than enough information on Witches in particular. However other than a bit of a desire to visit the moonlit Valley, most of it served to vex me.

Witches could just will magic to do whatever they wanted, so long as they were strong enough? They were basically low scale reality warpers!

I sat at the base of the stairs in the main central room as Viti and Charlie stood in front of the painting of who turned out to be Viti’s GreatGrandmother and Great Aunt.

“Yeah for some reason this is the only bit of decoration that in the entire house outside of the tea room,” Viti explained to Charlie. “I mean, yeah it’s a nice picture of Nana Gertva and Aunt Jisona, but couldn’t they couldn’t have given me anything else?”

“I still can’t believe that you told your family that you wanted to live in this world full time and they just gave you a new house,”

“Yeah, but did they have to give me the most stereotypical witch house ever? It’s going to take forever to replace everything. I don’t even like home decorating,”

“So what were you thinking of?”  
“Well for starters, replacing the entire freaking floor so that it stops creaking like I’m in a cheap horror movie,” She said as she shifted her foot for effect. “They’re not even old boards, I think they’re just enchanted to make that sound,”

“Oh, you should totally go for some lacquered floors,”

“Maybe I should, what kind of wood though,”

“Well, I guess it would depend on what your planning to do with the walls. Are you keeping the green walls and the… skulls?”

“No way, I’m not sure what I’m replacing them with, but those skulls got to go,”

“Hey I hate to interrupt, but didn't you say that you wanted to find out why Charlie noticed your house?”

The two girls paused before sporting a pair of twin frowns.

“Oh right,” Viti said as she motioned for us to follow her out the door to the old one of the old gnarled trees.

“The one thing I’m not going to get rid of,” She said before letting out a disgusted scoff. “All the protections and enchantments around the house are built into this tree,”

“So are they working right?” I asked as Viti leaned down and touched the tree. As she did, a small purple orb appeared at around face level. She grabbed ahold of it and stretched it out into a screen.

I looked over Viti’s arm and took a quick glance at the screen.

That was… that was a lot of red unreadable runes.

“So what’s the news?” Charlie asked from behind us. “Am I magic?”

If Charlie got any answer, it was in the form of an anguished scream out of Viti.

“I forgot to turn on the protective magics!” She said as she sunk to her knees and started punching the ground. I glanced up and saw a small crowd of people start to gather at the fence.

“Charlie, when did you see the house for the first time?”

“This morning,” SHe said simply.

I rushed to Viti and kneeled down next to her.

“Viti, you're freaking out and you can do that all you want later, but now you need to turn on the protections on the house right now!” I told her as I pointed to the gathering crowd. She looked up at my finger, following its gaze before her eyes widened. She scrambled to her feet and started tapping the purple screen over and over again.

Charlie and I watched as the crowd stayed put, the low murmur of conversation approached us.

“Viti, does the enchantment keep people from noticing the paying attention to the house or does it just keep them from noticing it the first time?”

“The first… oh no,” She said as she backed away from the tree and saw the small crowd that was not in any way dispersing. “Get back in the house,”

We all rushed back, slamming the door behind us. I leaned over to the windows and pushed it a bit to the side to look outside.

“Looks like we’re going to be in here for a while,” I explained as I closed the curtains again.

“What am I going to do?” Viti wailed as Charlie moved in to hug her. “I am going to get into so much trouble if this gets back to my family or other witches in general,”

“If they find out,” I pointed out as an idea came to me. “You're forgetting something really important about humanity,”

“They’re… or is it our… need to poke at everything with a stick?” Viti presented a fair point.

“No, the amazing human ability to adapt to situations and ignore stuff once you’ve gotten used to it,” I said as I pointed to Viti. “As long as, from this point on, nothing weird happens in connection to this house, you should be fine,”

There was a bit of silence as Viti processed my plan.

“So… do nothing?” No offense, but I kind of hate the plan,” She argued.

“Your entire problem is too much attention, outside of mind-altering magic, your best move is probably to not do anything. Just let the heat die down and hope that no other magic-related incidents catch the attention of the public,”

“About that,” Charlie cut in. “Viti, do you know anything about the golden light in the sky two weeks ago?”

I glanced over to the Pickati filled bag still next to the stairs.

“No clue. Wasn’t in town at the time,” Viti explained, not mentioning that I could explain that particular incident a lot better. “The crowd outside getting any smaller?”

I took another quick glance outside.

“Okay do you want the truth or do you want me to say that the crowd is getting smaller?” I told the girls.

“Ugh, why didn't I turn on the… hey wait a second,” She said before glaring at the air in front of her. “Mom said that the enchantment was already turned on when I brought the house here,”

Oh snap, then that meant…

“My family set me up!” She yelled into the air before stomping the ground. The resulting creaking sounds only raised her rage even further. Her glare turned from the air around her to me in particular. “And what happened to ‘do nothing and the crowd will go away’? Does the crowd outside look like it’s going away?”

“In my defense, that was more of a long term plan. I didn’t think that the crowd would get bigger,” I pointed out. It wasn’t like I had any way to make the crowd disperse…

Pickati had a spell that caused people to ignore an area. I knew he and the other guardians mostly used it to keep people away from the girls’ fights, but could we use it here?

Of course, doing so would reveal Pickati to Charlie which would most probably lead to my magi status getting revealed.

I took another quick glance at the crowd outside and flinched as another person walked forward to join it. This was getting ridiculous.

I swallowed my trepidation and walked up to my bag. I felt Pickati shift around inside as I picked it up and set it down next to me on the stairs.

“If only we had some sort of magical way to keep people from an area,” I said as I lightly pocked the area I knew Pickati was in.

I felt the bag shift again before something that I assumed to be pickati’s head rubbed up against my finger. I let out a calming breath as I felt it nod yes. He must have figured out where I was going with this.

“Hey Charlie,”

“Yeah Erick,” She asked, giving me a bit of a weird eye. Guess my whole thing with the bag must not have been as subtle as I thought.

“Since you’ve already sworn to one world-altering secret today, can I ask you to swear to two?” I said, my dread rising as the excitement in Charlie’s eyes rose.

“Oh my God are you magic too?” She said as she rushed up to me. Viti kept her distance but gave me thumbs up for encouragement.

“Better I just show you,” I told her as I set the bag down between us and opened the top.

Time to let the literal fox out of the bag.


	29. The marble in the glass

Despite expecting it to happen, I was still a little impressed by the way Pickati exploded out of my bag and started circling the room. The showboating was made even better by the look of wonder on Charlie’s face as the white and purple fox flew around the room.

“Oh my god, you are so cute!” She freaked as Pickati came to a stop in front of her.

“And you are the reason why I’m not currently curled up on a couch watching TV while Enrique attempts to do advanced magic,” He said with a sweet smile on his face as he pointed the paw equivalent of finger guns at her.

Charlie jumped back a bit.

“Oh wow that was not the voice I was expecting to come out of that body,” She said as she leaned forward and gave him the once over. “You’re not secretly a human that was turned into a magical animal for committing perverted crimes are you?”

That was apparently the line for Viti, who stomped her feet getting all of our attention.

“Guys, small mob of people outside remember?” She said as she moved the curtains a bit to show the group outside, who were still mostly just standing around and talking to each other.

“Oh, right,” Pickati said as he closed his eyes. I felt a weird wave come over me as Pickati opened his eyes. “Congratulations Viti, non-magical people will avoid your house for the next two hours,”

Viti took a quick peek outside. I looked over her shoulder and watched as the crowd began to disperse.

“The enchantment on the home should kick in now that no one’s paying attention to it,” She explained before sitting down on the floor in relief. She let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling. “I need to buy some freaking chairs,”

“Uh, Mr.Magic-flying-fox,” Charlie asked with a raised hand, creating a nickname for Pickati that I was totally going to use later. “I don’t feel any different,”

“I made an exception for you since you’re already in too deep to worry about you,” He explained before giving the girl a glare. “And my name is Pickati, not Mr.Magic-flying-fox. Also, while I’m at it, I am not, nor have I ever have been a human,”

“Hey, just making sure,” She protested before changing to a dumbfounded expression. “Wait you’re teaching Erick magic?” She yelled as she leaned a bit too far forward and almost fell over.

“I guess we’re just revealing all the secrets today Mr.Magic-flying-fox, ” I muttered to myself as I dug into my bag to grab a water bottle. Charlie saw my actions and watched enraptured, assuming that I was about to do a bit of showy, visually impressive, magic.

One out of three wasn’t so bad.

I brought forth my magic, applying the concepts of gravity, the water bottle, and nullify in that order. Once I was sure that the spell was stable, I pushed my magic into the water bottle.

“Tada,” I let out lamely as I let go of the water bottle and allowed it to float in place. Sure, it was pretty cool to me, who could see the work and effort behind the trick, but to someone with no knowledge of magic, it probably didn't look that interesting.

“That is so cool!” She yelled as she rushed up to me and started circling around the water bottle. “You’re a wizard? Like an actual, flesh and blood wizard? Why didn't you tell me?” She suddenly switched from ecstatic to cross. “You’ve been holding out on me Man,”

“The technical term is Magi, and I have my reasons for not telling you, A lot of them include the fact that I’m learning from Pickati who,” I pointed to Pickati for emphasis. “Is a whole other can of worms just by himself,”

“Hey,” Viti called out to the three of us from her spot on the floor, reminding me that she was there. “Mind passing me one of those water bottles?” I shrugged my shoulders and fished one out before walking to her and handing it over. Instead of opening it up and taking a drink, she gave me a cheeky grin and let go, letting it float in place like I had done. “So how many concepts did you need to put it into this thing to make it float?”

“Three,” I told her, not appreciating the tone of her voice. “And you?”

“None,” She said as she pushed the bottle with a single finger. “Witch magic doesn’t work like that remember? I want to do a thing, I try the thing, and I know if I can do it or not,”

“So what kind of advanced magic were you teaching Erick,” Charlie asked Pickati, changing the tone of the conversation.

“Well, less advanced magic, and more like a required stepping stone to a lot of advanced magic,” Pickati lectured. “I was teaching him to be able to walk on walls and ceilings,”

“I was making pretty good progress when you walked in and dragged me here to see the ‘haunted house’,” I added before Pickati rolled his eyes at me. “What I was making progress,”

“You had time to try the spell three times before she dragged you over here. Not exactly a full days training,”

“You can practice your wall walking here if you want,” Viti offered as she held the weightless bottle in her hand. “The least I can do after I copied your magic like that,”

“Really, aren’t you worried that I’ll mess up the walls… that you’re planning on replacing anyway,” I finished with an understanding nod.

“Oh that sounds cool, can I watch?” Charlie asked with stars in her eyes. I turned to Pickati who just gave me a shrug as if to say that it was my call.

“Sure, don’t see why not,” I told her, earning a cheer from my overly excitable friend.

I spent the next three hours tumbling across the walls of Viti’s entrance hall. At some point, Viti had left with a promise to quickly return, leaving the three of us alone.

“So you’re a hundred percent sure?” Charlie asked, looking like someone had just canceled every holiday between Halloween and St.Patrick’s day.

“Without a doubt,” Pickati said as he gently placed his paw on her head and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Your magic has dipped below the levels where it could be unlocked. You might be able to activate some magical items designed to be used by non-magical people, but barring some unprecedented event, casting spells is beyond you,”

“So no magic for me then,” She said as she wistfully looked away… right at me as I landed face-first on the floor after failing to properly create a concept of an absolute direction.

“I warned you about this Charlie,” I told her as I got off from the floor. “I got lucky and had just barely enough to unlock my magic,”

“Hey don’t worry about it,” Viti told her as she came back into the room with the serving table from earlier. It was still rolling around on its own, so if Viti was trying to distract Charlie from her lack of magic, then she was doing a poor job of it. “If you did get magic, then that would make you a magi, and most magi I know are arrogant weirdos who get really mad when you copy their magic,”

Was she talking about…?

“They aren’t so…”

“Two words, blood feud,” She cut me off with a decent point. How many times had I complained about Marvin and Clancy’s weird family fight? Too many to argue with Viti on this.

“I guess you have a point,” I conceded.

“I know I do,” She said with a satisfied smirk. “Now come on, I made lunch,”

Lunch turned out to be a plate full of cut-up sandwiches that had been carried in via the cart. Charlie looked just about ready to dig in before my paranoia kicked in. Pickati must have been thinking the same because he hung back too.

“Don’t mind if I,” I slapped Charlie’s hand before she could reach the food. She shot me an ugly glare which I tried to ignore.

“Viti, sorry to ask but… these are normal sandwiches right?” I asked, visions of ‘witch’ ingredients flooding my head. “Just asking before we eat,”

I wasn’t sure to be relieved or terrified when instead of getting offended, Viti awkwardly shuffled from side to side.

“Oh, I guess it would be a little messed up not to tell you guys what you were eating,” She said sheepishly.

“Okay, so you remember what I told you guys about the moonlit valley?” She said, referencing the town, surrounded by a forest, surrounded by a ring of tall mountains, where most witches lived nowadays. To my surprise, all three of us nodded, including Pickati. “Well once you go out past the mountains, you get to this endless white desert filled with giant monsters. Some of which are, for some reason, stupidly yummy when cooked up,” she explained as she took one of the sandwiches and opened it up. “The meat in these is from one of those monsters, aside from that it’s all normal ingredients.”

She reached in and pulled out what looked like an ordinary slice of ham. I narrowed my eyes a bit as I failed to find anything weird about it.

“Is it safe?” I inquired before feeling a little bad about asking. She wouldn’t have served it to us if it wasn’t.

“Never heard of anyone getting sick from it,” She said proudly, either ignoring or not noticing that I accidentally asked if she was going to poison us.

Well, that was enough for me. All four of us dug in, and aside from noting that the meat did in fact taste really good, there was nothing odd about the sandwiches.

A few minutes later, and I was back to figuring out wall walking.

“So that’s what the problem is,” Charlie hummed as Pickati finished explaining what I was doing wrong.

“Why do you Magi need to make magic so complicated,” Viti said with an eye roll. Pickati dashed up in front of her and glared at her.

“Because unlike you witches who have souls made from the stuff, normal humans can’t use pure magic without serious risk,” He explained to Viti.

I closed my eyes and tried to block out their arguing as I tried to think of a new way to infuse ‘a specific direction’ into a spell.

Maybe if I tried to picture the room itself rotating… no, that might work, but then I would have to technically make a new spell for every room I wanted to use it in. Plus I wasn’t sure that it would work outdoors.

Well if that wouldn’t work then how about…?

I pictured an empty, featureless room. A room that more of a sphere then a room. In the very center, equal distance from every wall, I placed a small glass orb, with a marble inside. The gravity in the glass orb sifted, moving the marble inside towards it’s new ‘down’.

I took this image and used it as a concept, and with a hopeful gulp, I pushed it into my magic.

I felt my complete spell ready to fire, and looked at the wall in front of me. I closed my hands in a tight fist and jumped at the wall, casting the spell once my feet were off the ground.

I landed on the wall with a thud that caught the attention of the other three. We all waited for a second to see if I would keep tumbling.

Instead, I rose to my feet and looked up at my friends, who were now standing on what I could call a wall.

I couldn't help myself, I started laughing as the others rushed up, offering congratulations. I tapped my feet around for a bit, another spell added to my ever-growing spell list.


	30. Back home again

“So just to make sure, you’re not bringing anyone else with you right?” I asked Melodia over the phone as she approached the house.

“Yeah, it’s just me,” Melodia explained as I eyed the clock. She’d be here soon.

“Okay, and you’re sure that nothing happened on your trip? Because you guys sounded a little nervous about it when I asked you last time,”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melodia said, the nervousness beginning to infect her voice near the end. “Everything went perfectly fine,”

I let out a hum of disbelief, not buying the wares my sister was seeling. “If you say so,”

“And I say so, anyway I see the house from here, I’ll see you in a minute,” She said before hanging up. I walked up to the door and waited to surprise her. I grinned as I heard the doorknob jiggle and heard the door unlock.

“I’m home,” She said as she walked in. “Enrique?”

She looked around for a bit, not seeing me for reasons that were about to become clear.

“Up here,” I called out from the spot above her where I was sitting on the ceiling. She let out a gasp and almost flinched back.

“You managed to put yourself on the walls,” She cried in joy.

“That’s right,” I said before jumping up, rolling in the air, and then resetting the gravity so that I landed on my feet.

“You have no idea how long it took for him to learn to do that,” Pickati said as he emerged from the kitchen, an apple floating behind him. He took a quick bite out of it before floating over to Melodia. “So what's the big secret you were trying and failing to hide from your brother?”

Melodia’s cheeks puffed up as Pickati and I leaned in and smiled at her. She held up for a little while more before she broke down.

“Okay fine,” He said, the victory tasting as sweet as expected. “I can’t tell you what happened, because it’s not my secret and all, but there might be a particular kid who goes to another school who might have some sort of connection to the supernatural,”

“So what, you had some sort of big adventure in the theme park?”

“A little bit,” Melodia confessed. “It was more of the fun, hijinks kind of adventure then the dangerous fighting kind though,” SHe explained as she tried to put me at ease. “I mean, Claire had to sit on Rashell shoulders so that they could fit in a mascot costume. I had fun,”

My eyes narrowed for a bit as I got an idea.

“Tell me, did the fact that you girls have superhuman durability factor into the whole ‘no danger’ thing?” I asked as Melodia tried to hide her cringe.

“Okay, so there might have been some minor amounts of rollercoaster surfing and climbing on tall buildings,” She said before raising up her arms. “Now before you freak out, no-one saw any of us, and we really weren't in any danger,”

I… wasn’t sure how to feel about that. While it was true that rollercoaster surfing might have been insane to any other human being, Melodia’s powers made it an almost no-risk activity. In fact… any activity involving hights was pretty much void of danger. Bungee jumping, sky diving, hand gliding, all of those were pretty much safe for her… and later on for me too.

“Hey, earth to Enrique. You in there Big Brother?” Melodia said as she tapped my arm, bringing me out of the daze I was just in.

“Sorry about that, just realizing all the dangerous stuff a fully trained gravity mage can do without any danger,”

“I'm surprised it took you so long to think about the possibilities,” Pickati said as he took another small bite from the apple. “I still can’t believe that you humans have found so many ways to make games out of jumping off high places,”

“Are you impressed or horrified?” I asked with a smile that Pickati gave back to me.

“With humans, I usually find myself balancing the two,” He clarified. “Plus you two should hurry up. Now that the magical girls are back in town, Viti is going to show everyone else her surprise,” He said, referring to four magical preteen girls with the term that Tina had been trying to force us all to use. The fact that it was apparently working went unsaid.

“Oh right, you said that we were going to go somewhere after I got back,” Melodia said as she remembered what I told her over the phone the day before. “I’m going to go get ready,”

I watched her as she grabbed her bag and ran off. Pickati and I both smiled, looking forward to her reaction to learning the surprise we had planned for everyone.


	31. Relocation

“Are you sure that this is the right place?” Melodia asked as I swung open the gate of the iron fence surrounding the creepy old house that hadn’t been there a few days before. It was pretty much sundown at this point, so the lack of light was just upping the creepiness of the situation.

“I’m sure,” I explained as I tried to fight back my smile. Pickati had it lucky, he was able to spend the trip here in Melodia’s backpack, out of sight. Meanwhile, the rest of us had to keep the surprise going.

“Hey guys,” The two of glanced over to the corner and spotted an approaching Tina and Rashell who were quickly approaching. Tina looked like her usual cheerful self but for some reason, Rashell looked pretty down for a kid who just went to Livney World. Tina did her best to be cheerful for the two of them though. “I got your text and found Rashell on the way here,”

“You think that everyone else is on the way?” I asked as the pair reached us. “I’m pretty sure that everyone was free today,”

“I think so, they all said they were coming in the group chat earlier. I’m sure that they’re on their way,”

“Over here,” We all looked over as Claire and Ana ran towards us. They both stumbled for a bit as they noticed the house, but managed to come to a stop right before they could crash into us. “Are you sure that this is the right place?”

“Yeah, this is the place,” I reassured Ana, pretending that I couldn’t see a single thing wrong with the situation. Now the only people left were the two magi who should be here any… And there was a mysterious flying figure approaching us. “Anyone else see that coming towards us,” I said, pointing it out.  
Rashell was the first to react, her head shooting upwards, a huge smile on her face. A smile that waned as the figure approached and revealed itself to be Marvin. He was being carried by that one human-sized doll that he had shown off on the roof of that building where the Mimic Queen had been. It was named Maria if I remembered correctly.

They landed with a gentle thud as Marvin let go of the Doll.

“Thank you Carol,” He said to the doll, which I thought was named Maria, before it bowed and retreated into the shadows.

“Oh it’s just you,” Rashell groaned before looking away and at the floor with a small on her face.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Marvin asked, but from the way he was leaning away, he was probably not used to seeing her like this either.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” She said as the rest of the girl either rolled their eyes, in the case of my Sister and Claire, or patting her shoulder supportively in the case of Ana.

“So there’s something that I’ve been wondering,” I said, trying to change the subject. “Back on the rooftop, you called that doll Your Maria, but now it’s named Carol. What’s up with that?”

“Oh you see,” Marvin started, looking thankful for the change in subject. “A Maria is a special class of doll that my family makes. We can only ever have one at a time, and each one can only be controlled by the one who created it. Mine is named Carol,”

“I see,” I said with a nod. Now the only person left is...

“Hey,”

We all jumped as we noticed Clancy who had somehow managed to sneak into almost the center of the group without anyone noticing.

“How did you manage to sneak up on us?” Claire asked as she looked at Clancy with a worried eye.

“I have to keep a few secrets,” She said with a slight huff.

“Typical,” Marvin grumbled, letting me know that the feud was alive and well. Clancy, for her part, just kind of ignored him and looked over to me.

“So what exactly did you call us all up to tell us,” She said as she looked over to the house we were standing in front of. “I’m going to take a wild guess that it has something to do with this knock-off horror movie set,”

“You would probably be right,” I said as I finally swung open the fence. “The owner of this place has invited us all to this house. A sort of transparency to the existing supernatural denizens of North Pine, from the newest Supernatural denizen of North Pine,”

“And you’re sure that it’s not some sort of trap?” Claire asked with a cynicism beyond her years. By the look on their faces, Clancy and Marvin were about to say the same thing.

“It’s not a trap,” I reassured them. I’ve gotten a chance to get to know the owner a bit while Melodia was on vacation, they’re on the up and up,” The cynical trio just gave me a synchronized hum of disbelief.

I walked through the gates and led them to the door, Marvin Clancy and Claire looking ready for a fight. Ana and Melodia also kind of looked ready to fight, but not the same point as the first three. Tina was walking beside Rashell, trying her best to lift the girl’s spirit.

I opened the door, revealing mostly the same room that I had been in a few days ago, with the exception of a large floating banner reading ‘Welcome North Palm Middle/High supernatural Association’ in green text. Underneath the banner was Viti in a black dress, sunglasses, and with her hands outstretched. On either side of her were small tables filled with finger food.

“Guess who’s officially moving into town?” Viti said as she ran up to the three original members of the association and brought them in for a hug.  
Amazingly, neither Clancy or Marvin looked too annoyed at being forced into the same hug.

“Wait, don’t you just commute in every day from the Moonlit Valley?” Clancy pointed out despite the huge smile on her face. Viti relented, letting the three loose. “You’re going to start living in town now?”

“No more daily teleporting for me, I’m going to be here all the time now,” Viti explained. “Plus I even got my family to help me set up this house to live in,”  
“Not that I have anything against it, but why the move?” Marvin asked earning a knowing grin from Viti, Pickati as well as yours truly.

“Well now that we’ve expanded so much, I figured that a small club room upstairs of a cafe was getting too small,” She gestured to the room around us. “So say hello to our new Head Quarters. I’ll give you all keys for the place in a bit, so feel free to drop in anytime. Once I’ve had the time to set up shadow portals around town, we’ll also be able to use this place as a teleport hub,”

“This is, wow Viti, this is amazing,” Tina said in, well, amazement. She walked out into the center of the room, as I noticed a small detail. “A whole mini-mansion just to ourselves,”

“Hey, you managed to fix the creaking floors,” Pickati pointed out. I glanced over and saw that the guardians had emerged from their backpack hiding spots at some point and were floating around the room.

“Yeah, as it turns out, they were enchanted to make that sound. It was a real pain to get rid of that while keeping the magic that makes them damage resistant,”

“How did you know that they used to creak?” Melodia asked the floating fox.

“Well, that’s a bit of a long story,” He said as he met my eyes.

“Now that I think about it, how did you know about this place before the rest of us?” Tina questioned. “I would have thought I’d be the first to find out that Viti was moving in,”

“Well like Pickati said, it’s a long story,”

“One that you can explain over snacks,” Viti said as she put her arm around my neck and held a mini-quiche in her other hand.

“Alright, alright,” I caved before thinking of a certain detail from my last visit. “All of the snacks are… normal right?”

“Yes you big baby,” She said with a mischievous smile. “Everything is made with nice, safe, boring ingredients. Next time someone comes over they’re eating monster meat though,”

The small party went on after that, everyone eating and hearing how I had gotten dragged here by Charlie and everything that had happened afterward.

“So Charlie knows we’re magic know,” Melodia said as she looked at the cup of soda in her hand. “Not sure I know how to feel about that,”

“Charlie knows that I’m magic,” I corrected her. “You’re still in the clear,”

“Still it is a bit a problem that someone with no connection to the supernatural knows about magic. Less of a stake for them when it comes time to keep everything secret,” Marvin asked before taking a bite of a cheese mini-quiche and swallowing before turning to Viti. “And you’re sure that you don’t want me to bring over some of my construction dolls to help you remodel this place?”

“I’m sure Marvin. I’ll be able to handle it on my own with my magic,” She argued.

“Why do you even have construction dolls anyway,” Claire asked drinking her own soda. She put the cup down and looked over to Rashell who was standing by the wall by herself just kind of looking at her cup.

None of the girls had been eager to explain what was wrong with their friend, and there had been an unspoken agreement among the older of us to give the girl a bit of space.

“Well at the time I was trying to build at least one of every doll in my family’s grimoire,” Marvin explained to us. “Of course later when I needed to expand my basement…”

I felt the phone in my pocket vibrate. I thought about ignoring it to listen to Marvin, since I couldn’t think of anyone that would be….

My parents!

I reached into my pocket and swiped my phone open.

To my relief, it wasn’t my parents asking me why the two of us weren’t home when they had gotten there early. Instead in was Charlie with a text message. I opened the app and found a simple text. The words “ACTUAL EMERGENCY WATCH ASAP” and a link to a video.

“What is it?” Marvin asked me as I realized that I was making a dower face.

“Video link from Charlie, says that it’s an emergency,” I explained causing Viti to perk up.

“In that case, mind casting it to this?” She said before pointing at an empty spot on the wall. A TV materialized right before our eyes and turned on to a blank screen. I glanced down at my phone and found a TV labled ‘Magic TV told you it would work mom’.

I picked it without bothering to ask Viti if it was the right one.

The video started, it was a news clip from earlier today. The broadcaster was talking in front of a photo of a Ferris Wheel. Something about a shocking sight caught on camera. The video feed cut to said video. It was a man dressed in rags and a kid around my sister’s age standing on top of one of the cars of the Ferris wheel. Considering the angle, it must have been taken from one of the cars above them.

The man burst forward, swinging a hatchet at the kid, who ducked underneath.

“Ash!” We all jumped as Rashell shrieked and rushed forward, her eyes glued to the TV. “Why doesn’t he just run?”

Wait, hadn't Melodia said that they had met some other kid with ties to the supernatural?

As if to answer my unspoken question, the kid burst into flames tried to punch the man. The man responded by grabbing the kid and throwing him off the car, ignoring the flames in the process. Instead of falling, the kid grew wings of flame and stabilized before starting what I could only call an attack run on the hatchet man.

“So I think now would be a good time to confess that we met a phoenix in human form at Livney World,” Melodia added as we all watched the kid fight for his life.


	32. On the curtain's edge

“And here I thought that all the magical beasts were just dead.” Pickati pointed out as he floated up to get a better look at the fight on screen. “I wonder how the whole ‘human form’ thing happened?”

“Well the way Ash explained it, once the starving time started kicking into high gear, a lot of the intelligent magical beasts decided to hide away by taking human form,” Melodia explained befoe getting an odd look on her face. “Feel’s weird being the one to explain things for once,”

“Forget that,” Ana cut in before pointing at the screen. “Who the heck is he fighting,”

Just as she spoke, Ash managed a direct hit with a fireball. Some of the man’s clothes burned off, informing us that Ana’s question should have been ‘what’ not ‘who’.

Its skin looked putrid and rotten, filled with sores and open wounds. Half of its face was missing, almost as though it had gotten mangled by a wild animal. The skin itself was a purplish hue, broken up by the occasional scorch marks left by Ash’s assault. And the worst part was the way its muscles moved. The skin was shallow enough to be able to make out the muscles slithering away under its skin.  
We all looked around the room, looking for the person who was going to deliver the exposition this time. To our discomfort, it looked like none of us had an answer as to what exactly this thing was.

“Let’s just call it a zombie for now,” Claire said, putting to words what we were probably all thinking.

“Who cares what it is, why is Ash fighting ti when he has two perfectly good wings to fly away with?” Rashell demanded. “That thing is swinging that hatchet around like it wants to kill him, and unlike us, Ash doesn’t have superhuman durability!”

“But aren’t phoenixes immortal?” Marvin pointed out.

“Phoenix immortality doesn’t work that way,” Melodia cut in. “It’s more like a combination of reincarnation and Professor When style regeneration. If Ash dies, he’s gone and an entirely new being will take his place,”

Melodia muttered something under her breath about how she still wasn’t used to that when a sudden burst of light caught all of our attention.

Ash was holding his own on the screen, the burst of light had been him exploding into flames and crashing into the zombie monster and knocking it off the Ferris Wheel. The camera followed the zombie as it fell onto the concrete floor. It hit it with a violent splat as Ash descended down and started… well, the best word I could think of was sterilizing.

Flamers erupted from the ground and formed a cacoon of fire around the zombie. The flames wrapped and wrapped until they were too thick to even see-through. When the flames subsided and Ash collapsed in exhaustion, the only thing left of the monster was an oval scorch mark on the floor.

With that ended, the camera turned back to the reporter. She was standing in front of the Ferris Wheel again, the large oval-shaped scorch mark to her left much more noticeable now.

“The boy on fire, as many are calling him online, was later brought in by local police. Anyone with possible information about today’s events is encouraged to contact the police at the number on the screen,”

“Ash’s been arrested?” Rashell shrieked, causing the rest of us o flinch back and over our ears. “We have to go help him,”

“How, all that happened on the gulf coast, how do you expect us to get over there?” Claire pointed out.

“We have a teleporter,” Rasehll shot back, pointing to Viti who looked a bit sheepish at the attention.

“Actually, I can only teleport to places where I’ve been before. And since I’ve never been anywhere near Tampa…”

“Fine!” Rashell yelled before turning to Tina. “Tina, get the van ready, we’re going on a road trip,”

“Rashell, I understand your… circumstances, but there’s no way I’m about to start a five-hour dive at this hour,” Tina tried to reason. “Besides, I’m sure he’ll be fine,”

“Besides, we have another major problem on our hands,” Clancy said as she looked at the dark screen. “Between everything that’s happened since the mimics first started showing up, I’d say that magic is closer to discovery now more than ever,”

“We’ll have to tread with even more caution now, and that means no launching of high profile jailbreaks,” Marvin directed that last part at Rahsell.

“Now that I think about it, how has magic not been found out by now?” I asked as I thought of just how much damage our fights had caused. I mean, we had blown up a building and there was bearly a mention on the news the next day.

“Well at the moment there are two theories…” Tina started explaining before earning glares from both sides of the local blood feud. “Either Marvin’s right and there’s some sort of big Strangers in Black style U.N. organization that keeps magic secret; or Clancy’s right and magic is somehow semi-sentient, doesn’t want to be found, and alters reality to make sure that it doesn’t,”

“Which is dumb and doesn’t explain the lack of official action whenever things happen,” Marvin cut in.

“Do you really think that the government has proof of magic, and hasn’t somehow leaked it yet?” Clancy roared back.

“Makes more sense than magic being alive! Don’t you think we would have noticed something like that?” He snapped as two dolls emerged from somewhere, knives drawn.

“Like any of us really know the underlying mechanics of how magic works!” Clancy added as she dug her nails into her palm and started forming a small ball of blood.

“Or they could both be wrong,” Viti added as Tina walked up to both teens and shocked both into submission. “And could you guys not make a huge bloody mess on the floor. I’m the one who’s going to have to clean up after you guys if you do,”

“If you want to argue about magic’s bizarre tendency to stay hidden, do it later,” Pickati said. “For now we should be focused on making sure that it stays that way, at least for us,”

“Yeah I don’t think we can do anything if two magi decide to fight it out in Berlin or something, but we can try to make sure that people don’t look here at least,” Ana said with the kind of blind optimism that you don’t see too often.

“We’ll have to work even harder to make sure that we take out any fake-dolls as quickly as possible,” Claire added, eyeing Marvin to make sure that the older mage hadn’t been too annoyed by the term doll. “Viti, how long will it take to set up your portal network?”

“I was going to do it as a kind of laid-back week-long project, but after seeing this… I can get most of the city covered in a weekend if I don’t do anything else. That includes cook so one of you guys is going to have to come over and do that for me,” She finished pointing at us.

We kept talking about our plans to set up Viti’s portal network, confident that we could handle whatever the spirit of destruction or it’s dolls could throw at us.

A dimension removed from the comfort of the party, three figures stood on three pillars surrounding a large bowl-like crater. Beyond the pillars was an endless wasteland of shifting black ooze. There was a fourth pillar, competing the set. However, atop the fourth pillar stood no one.

”We should have left you sealed Rupture,” A wild-looking man said as he glared at the figure to his left. Across from him, another figure with long hair and a military uniform rolled his eyes.

“And I’m still amazed that you were the first of us to come back Break,” A hunched over woman wearing a gray cloak said as she looked down into the bowl. She looked up at the wildman and pushed up the reflective glasses under her hood, giving him an ugly sneer. “You two have any luck finding Sever under all this gunk?”

“No, Neither of us have seen a hair on her head,” Shatter said as he rubbed the sword on his hilt. It was new, a replacement after that girl melted his first sword.

“Wish we would have found her instead of you,” Break huffed as the black ooze started gathering in the bowl below the three of them.

“And I wish I could tear you apart and use you for raw materials, but we don’t all get what we want,” Rupture declared as she gazed at ooze below. “So this is how much we can take out at once for the moment. Not as much as I would want, but I’ll work with what I have,”

“So what do you have in mind?” Shatter inquired.

“Well based on what you’ve told me so far, I think I know what your problem is. You’re not looking at the problem the right way,”

“And just how are you looking at it?” Break snapped.

“In a new way,” Rupture sneered at him as she began to mold the ooze below into her desired shape.


	33. Lure

It started as a normal day, all things considered. Our parents had both gone off to work, leaving Melodia and I to ‘enjoy’ our first real day of summer. We were both sitting in front of the TV, Pickati curled up and half hanging off the couch behind our heads.

However, it would only take a second to notice that something was off about us. I had my hand gripped tightly on the armrest, Melodia was tapping her feet on the floor, and Pickati was only pretending to be asleep.

The ‘boy on fire’ incident had been the night before, and I guess we were all on edge. If I had to guess, the rest of the association was probably in the same state as us. A doll attack right now could be trouble, and right now the last thing we needed was trouble.

The exception would probably be Viti, who should have been hard at work setting up her portal network. A portal network that was still far from done.

“Maybe we’re just overthinking it?” Melodia suddenly said as the TV cut to commercial. I glanced over to her and saw that she was shaking a little. “Maybe Viti will finish her portals by the time the next Doll attacks and everything will go back to normal?”

“Let’s hope,” I added as I felt something furry move across my back. I gulped as Pickati floated between us, a pained look on his face. I grimaced, Melodia stomped her foot while gnashing her teeth, all the while Pickati just wore the guiltiest look I had ever seen on his face.

“Just bring me the map of the town,” He said simply as I got up and grabbed the small map that had become a permanent fixture of the living room in the last few weeks.

We quickly cleared the table and stretched the map out in front of us, Pickati floating around in a circle. He came to a stop on an odd location. A train station on the edge of town, one that was almost abandoned.

“Guess we lucked on that front,” I pointed out as I struggled to remember what the place looked like, or if I had ever been there to begin with. After a few seconds of mulling it over, I came to the conclusion that I had never been to the place in my entire life.

“Yeah I guess we did,” Melodia said as she eyed the isolated strain station suspiciously. “Have a weird feeling about this though,”

“You’re not the only one,” Pickati added as he looked at the map. “Something feels… off about this one,”

“I’ll grab the motorcycle,” I volunteered as Melodia grabbed her phone and started texting all the teenage members of the association that didn’t have a handy doll-detecting guardian floating around like we did.

By the time I met Picakti and Melodia outside with the motorcycle, the pair looked a little calmer. With any luck, the ride there would help pull them at ease.  
Roughly an hour later, we pulled up to the train station. We were the first ones there, so the place looked completely empty. I parked the bike in the middle of the empty parking lot outside the station. Melodia and I got off the bike as Picakti floated towards the station. He dashed back and forth with a concentrated look on his face.

He landed on my shoulder and looked up at the second floor of the station.

“It’s there,” He said as we both nodded and ran towards the doll.

The station was pretty typical for the city. One platform for the northside, one for the south, and a single hallway that went over the tracks to connect the two. The whole place was covered in old paint and filled to the brim with pigeons making their nests in the rafters above us. The steps to the second-floor overpass were made of strong concrete, so at least there was that.

We got to the second floor and spotted a lone figure standing in the dead center of the hallway. We stopped in place and backed up a bit until we were hidden behind some metal beams.

The sun shining through the glass ceiling and walls above and around us filling the place with light and making the strangers gray cloak look even more out of place. Right past them, we could see a swirling vortex of black ooze on the ground.

“Do you think that’s another one?” I asked as my brain flashed back to Break and Shatter. “One of the human-like Dolls that command the normal ones?”  
“It might be,” Pickati answered, “Either way, she standing right in front of doll’s emergence point,”

“I’ll go deal with it,” Melodia said as she took a deep breath and walked out from our minimal cover. “Hello there, are you okay?”

The cloaked figure flinched a little and turned back to us. Under the hood, we could see that she was an older woman in her early twenties with thick-rimmed glasses. I couldn’t see much of her face behind them.

“Okay, of course I’m okay,” She said as she stepped aside to allow the vortex to come into full view. “although something tells me that today is going to be an interesting day…” She trailed off as she took a closer look at my sister.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Melodia demanded.

“You look a little familiar…” She finally said as she rubbed the material of her hood.

“I guess I just have one of those faces,” She said back as her voice shook with nerves.

“I guess you do. Well, it doesn’t matter,” She said as the vortex stopped spinning. “You’ll make a fine warm-up for my doll before those troublesome brats show up,”

“Powers of the Stars, guide me through the deepest wells,” Melodia spoke rapidly as she was consumed by a purple flash. Just in time, as a blurry figure dashed from out of the vortex right at her. The light subsided just in time for Melodia to bring up her knee to hit whatever was attacking her.  
The figure dashed back before landing next to the hooded figure, who was looking at Melodia in clear frustration.

“So that’s why you looked familiar,” She said as she chewed the nail on her thumb. She pulled her thumb into a fist and shook it in front of her as she muttered. “Break can never know about this,”

The doll next to her ignored it’s master’s frustration, instead just looking at Melodia as it rubbed the underside of its chin. That was probably where she had hit it with her knee.

The doll was… well, I guess the best descriptors would be plain looking and generic.

It was humanoid in shape, covered in rubbery looking gray scales. It almost looked like the kind of texture you would see on a monster suit in an old kaiju movie. Its limbs were just a bit too long and stretchy, and its face was flat, with two holes for nostrils and an open move of gray shark-like teeth.

Considering the track record of the rest of the dolls, it looked weirdly normal. Still, this was a new commander, maybe her style was plain generic enemies?

Generic or not, the monster dashed forward at my sister with its claws out. Melodia eyed it carefully before muttering something under her breath. The monster stopped in place and jumped back before eyeing a spot on the ground carefully.

“Smart,” Melodia commentated as she watched the monster growl at her. Its eyes darted around her, before quickly locking onto Pickati and I.  
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said as it crouched down to the ground.

It jumped to the left, breaking through the glass with ease. All three of us were bearly able to track it as it climbed the side of the overpass with its claws. By the time I was moving, it was already breaking through the glass behind me.

I let out a cry of pain as I jumped back, the glass shards tearing into me. I came to a stop in the middle of the hallway and made a snap decision.  
I reached into my magic and brought up the concepts needed for a certain spell.

I held my breath has the world around me starting shifting until I was falling down the side of the hallway. Just in time too, since I managed to fall past my sister who was already running at the doll ready to pummel it to the ground.

As I fell, I took a second to think over my current state.

Bad news, I was bleeding pretty badly from all of the glass shards.

Good news, I was falling away from the big scary monster that had hit me with said glass.

Bad news, I was now falling towards the being that had summoned said monster in the first place.

I glanced ‘downwards’ at the still distracted doll commander and made a decision. I twisted around until I was going straight for her and stuck my feet out.  
I impacted the Commander right in her stomach. She let out a breathy noise as I kept going, taking her with me.

I crashed into the glass wall at the end of the hall with her under my feet. I deactivated the spell as the glass cracked, getting my feet to the ground before I broke through. I watched the commander as she slowly peeled herself off the glass and slump down to the floor. She twitched a bit before collapsing onto the floor in front of me.

I looked down, she looked up, and for what felt like a long time, we just looked at each other in the eyes.

Her eyes were Hazel...

Without a word, I pulled my foot back and kicked her right in the face, shattering her glasses and making her scream. Seeing my opening, I ran for it down the stairs, Pickati joining me soon after.

“Did you just kick her in the face?” He demanded as we raced down the stairs.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” I told him as we made it outside.

“You do realize that she’s probably going to gunning after you personly every time she attacks from now on, right?” He said as we crossed the train tracks and made it back into the parking lot.

“Hey, it was a spur of the moment decision,” I fired back as we spotted the rest of the calvary pulled up. I hailed them as Tina’s van pulled up and Ana, Claire, and Rashell spilled out.

“Geez, what happened to you?” Ana asked as blunt as ever. I rolled my eyes and ignored the pain in my arms.

“Doll broke through a glass window to get at me,” I explained quickly. “Also Melodia’s busy fighting the doll up there so if you could help her out that would be…”

The sound of shattering glass cut me off as the rubbery doll landed on the ground, its body covered in even more glass. Melodia appeared right after it, jumping from the broken window before landing on it with what looked like a gravity boosted stomp.

It let out a pathetic growl before dissolving into goo.

“Oh,” Ana said as she looked at the quickly decaying doll. “Guess you had this handled huh?”

“Yeah it was pretty easy too,” She said as she glanced back at the overpass. “Maybe a little too easy,”

As if on cue, it was at that moment that the Commander crawled to the window and looked down at us. Her hood was down this time revealing her short brown hair and ooze-covered face.

“Wow, you really did a number on her,” Rashell pointed out as the commander tried to rub the ooze off her face.

“That wasn’t me,” Melodia said as she gave me an unamused piercing stare.

“Wait, that was you?” Claire asked as she jumped in front of me. “How did you do that?”

“I may or may not have kicked her in the face and she may or may not have been wearing glasses at the time,” I explained as the Commander let out a roar of frustration.

“And now the glass bits are messing with my regeneration and I can’t get them out!” She shrieked at me from up there.

“Well you did have your doll try to kill me,” I pointed out back to her. “I’d say we’re even,”

“We’re even when I say we are, and I say that we’ll be even when I turn your skull into a decorative cup!” She howled, weirdly articulately for someone with a pair of glasses worth of glass in her face.

“I think you made her mad,” Melodia said snidely before turning to her. “And what are you going to do anyway? I already destroyed your doll,”  
The commander stopped rubbing her face and gave us all a smirk of all things.

“Actually I say my plan is going pretty well. Well, maybe not the part about my glasses, but everything else is going just as planned,”  
“Your doll is destroyed, how is that part of your plan,” Ana demanded only for the commander to snigger at her.

“That’s for you all to find out, and when you do you’ll be sorry you ever crossed Rupture,” The newly named commander said before ducking back into the hall. By the time the girls made it up there, she was already gone.

“What do you think she meant by her plan?” Melodia asked as Clancy carefully pulled the glass shards out of me with the help of her Hemomancy. I did my best to not flinch every time my own blood dug itself into my skin to help, but it still felt weird.

“Uhm… Everyone,” Tina said from the driver’s seat of the van. “I think I know what Rupture’s plan is,” She said as she turned towards us and showed us her phone.

On it was a live broadcast of at least a dozen of those rubber monsters rampaging across a city street.

“That’s why it was so weak,” Melodia said as the rest of us were stunned into silence. “She made more than one,”

This was a distraction, meant to draw us out to the most remote part of the city before launching the real attack.

As I watched the people flee in terror of the dolls, I couldn’t help but feel as though I should have kicked Rupture twice.


	34. Shattered barrier

Fire rages throughout the city, as monsters from an old age make chaos. People run from the chaos, as authorities try to stem the destruction. New miracles of science ensure that every second is recorded and broadcasted for the world to see.

It is here, on these streets, that the curtains are peeled back for the first time in centuries. Magic and monsters, clear for the world to see. However, even as the horrors are paraded for the word to see, a ray of light will break through the clouds.

On these streets, heroes will rise, and the world will see that the light is more than capable of fighting back the shadows that claw at it.

We drove through the streets, trying to fight against the crowds as they surged past us. I sat next to Clancy on the bench across from the four girls, Melodia haven turned back to preserve her magic apparently.

After Clancy fixed me up, we had taken advantage of the girls’ boosted strength to pull the hoist the motorcycle onto the back of the van. We’d done it so that we could talk while traveling to the battle, but it looked like that plan had backfired. Tina looked uncharacteristically frustrated as she waited for her chanced to drive forward.

“We’re never going to make it to any of fights, let alone all of it,” Tina growled as she punched the dashboard.

“I think that we’re going to split up from here,” Ana said as she looked out the window at the people outside. “This van has a roof window right?”

“Yeah it does, but if you girls get out here then…” Tina trailed off as the rest fo the girls realized what she was about to say.

“I think that it’s a little too late to worry about people finding about us,” Melodia said in frustration. “As big of a decision revealing ourselves in, I think Rupture made it for us,”

“Melodia’s right,” Ana said as she held her fist in front of her chest. “We don’t really have a choice here,”

The rest of the girls nodded along with the plan. However, before any of them could jump out the top of the window, they were interrupted by my phone going off. I grabbed it and quickly read the name.

“Hold on for a sec, it’s Marvin,” I told them. “He might have something for us,”

I took the call only to flinch as he started yelling into the phone.

“Where are you!” He demanded. I took a quick glance outside to find some streets and then told him our location.

“The doll commander drew us out to that old train station at the edge of town,” I explained. “We’re trying to drive back, but we’re pretty stuck right now,”  
“I guess that makes sense,” He said from the other end of the line. “I’m at Viti’s house with her and some girl named Charlie. I have some of my own dolls helping defend, so we should be alright if any of the fake dolls show up,”

“Well, it’s good to know your safe, anything else?” I asked, hoping that he had info for us.

“Yes actually, could you put me on speaker?” He asked as I placed the phone down on the table in the center of the van and did as he said.

“You’re on speaker,” I told him as I heard the rustle of paper on the other end of the line.

“Alright, so between my scouting dolls and Viti’s witch magic, we’ve been able to pinpoint seven areas of where the dolls are concentrating,” I took out the map that we had used earlier and followed along as Marvin listed off the locations. I placed a small ‘x’ on top of the location with a pencil that Tina had laying around. As he finished the last of the locations, I winced at how spread out they were.

“Look like you girls are going to need to split up,” I told them as they looked at the map. Ana hummed as I saw her eyes dart around between the spots on the map and the rest of her friends.

“Rashell, you’re the fastest,” She finally said. “You should get this one right here,” She pointed to the furthest spot on the map.

“Should I also get this group right here?” She asked as she pointed to a group that was around halfway to the furthest concentration.

“Yeah,” Ana said before turning to Claire. “Claire, you’re the only one without any real way to move fast, so you take this group here,” She said as she pointed to the group closest to us.

“Got it,” Claire said as she glared at the map.

“Melodia, can your brother take you on his motorcycle?” Ana demanded as I felt just a tiny bit sidelined.

“Yes I can, thank you very much,” I cut in. Ana just pointed at the map, picking out two spots that looked pretty easy to get to via some back roads.

“You have these two,” She said plainly before pointing to the last two spots, the ones closest to the center of the city and the ones that apparently had the most dolls.

“Let me guess, those are yours?” Melodia asked, to which Ana just gave a nod and a fake smile.

“You guys all know where to go?” She asked one last time to a synchronized quartet of nods. “Alright then, let’s do this,”

The four girls reached their hands out as they began to glow. They all closed their eyes as Clancy and I averted our eyes to avoid the glare.

“Power of the stars,”

“Power of ice,”

“Power of gusts,”

“Power of light,”

They all said in turn before the light got stronger.

“Guide me through the deepest wells,”

“Stop all that would harm me”

“Clear my path to freedom”

“Protect my heart,”

They all said as one as the light resided to reveal four girls in colorful costumes that were about to fight a small army of monsters.  
When had the world gotten so strange?

Ana and Rasehll reached up and opened the window above. They climbed on top of the van as Claire, Melodia and I got out the back of the van. I helped the two girls get the Motorcycle, setting it up as I tried to ignore the people that were watching us. I looked up and watched Rashell fly away while Ana jumped and formed a hard light platform under her feet that propelled her forward through the air.

“Since when can she do that?” I asked Melodia as Claire ran off.

“Since the thing with the rollercoasters actually,” Melodia explained as the two of us hopped onto the motorcycle.

“Well, nice to know that it’s new,” I told her as I revved up the bike and took off.

Claire POV

People mostly ignored me as I ran. Part of me felt a little annoyed at that, but the practical part of me shut that part up. The faster I got there the faster I could take these dolls out.

If I could anyway. I was fully aware that I was the weakest direct fighter on the team, but with how weak Melodia said these dolls were, I should be able to take care of them.

Of course, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t happy that I was only dealing with one group.

It took me a bit of running to reach my battleground, the large bridge that connected the two halves of North Palm. Since there was one way to cross the river, a bunch of people would need to cross it to run away from the dolls.

So no surprise to learn that the dolls were attacking it.

When I got to the bridge, it looked like the police had already blocked it off with their cars as they shot at the approaching hoard of dolls. A quick glance at the other end of the bridge and I saw that the police and done the same over there. At the center of the bridge between the two police lines was a large crowd of people.

Fortunately for the police, the dolls were weak enough to slow down with their guns. They weren't getting any kills, but it was enough to keep them at bay. Rupture probably shouldn't have given her dolls the ability to feel pain if she wanted them to act as a swarm.

I cracked my knuckles and approached the crowd of dolls from the side. One of the cops must have noticed me, because I heard of one of them yell at me to run over to them. Ironically, his yelling caused the dolls to notice me. They all turned to me from their spots on the streets, on the roofs, from everywhere.

“Let’s do this,” I muttered to myself as the first of the dolls lept at me.

Concepts: freeze, five by five square in front of me, freeze all.

A solid wall of ice appeared in front of me, going through the doll's hand, slicing it off. I walked around the wall and grabbed the doll.

Concept: freeze, object I’m holding, instant freeze.

The doll froze solid as I followed up with a punch that shattered it into pieces.

“Who's next?” I asked as more of the dolls charged at me. They were grouping up… time to use my newest spell.

“Area slow!” I yelled as I used one of my pre-made spells. A blue circle appeared on the ground in front of me, enveloping the dolls. In an instant, they were moving like someone had set them to half speed.

Well, I guess I just did, didn't I?

I rushed up the group, weaving my way through the crowd, freezing as many I could get my hands on. In their rush to get at me, the brutes shattered their own. The floor was soon covered with broken ice and melting doll parts.

I steadied my breath as I froze a doll, as another one slashed at me with its claws. Even at half speed, I had my hands full making sure they didn't hit me. If they were only a little bit stronger, they would have been able to survive my flash freeze. If that was the case, I would have been in trouble.

“Keep it…” I muttered to myself as I noticed the blue circle starting to fade under my feet. I grit my teeth and focused, trying to reset the spell.

That moment was all the dolls needed. A blinding pain erupted from my back as I felt a doll’s claw run through my back. I bit back a scream as I turned around and grabbed the bloody claw that tore into me. A second later, the offending doll was frozen and shattered.

I was bleeding, I could feel my magic beginning to drop, and I still had half of the dolls to deal with. A quick check also showed me that my movements had brought me through the crowd of dolls to right in front of the police line.

A police line that were all staring at me.

“Hi,” I said plainly before flinching at the sensation of blood dripping down my back. The sound of approaching dolls, broke me out of my momentary distraction. I grabbed the claw of the first to reach me and pulled my fist back to shatter it.

Instead, there was the sound of a single gunshot before the doll shattered just as if I had punched it.

“So that’s all it takes huh?” I hear done of the cops say before he jumped the police line, his gun in his hand. He reached me and covered my back as more dolls came at us.

“You freeze, I shoot,” He said to which I gave a simple huff of agreement before the first doll reached me. I grabbed it, freezing it before letting it go for the cop to shoot.

We began a strange dance, I would freeze them and he’d put a bullet in them until the rest of the dolls were dead.

“What is going on in this town?” The cop asked as he watched the last of the dolls on this side of the bridge dissolve into nothing.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him as I eyed the dolls on the other end of the bridge. With only one group left, I was free to dip a bit deeper into my magic.

“I don’t suppose you'd be willing to...” I ran off before he could continue, running across the police line and passing the crowd of civilians who were starting to approach the cleared area. The police were clearing the road, getting ready to escort them away.

The crowd watched me as I ran past, but I was too quick to notice what kind of expression they had.

I reached the other police line, the cops giving me a weird look as I looked out to the dolls in front of me. Unlike the other end of the bridge, this half led to a mostly open space. As such the dolls were in a big crowd with no cover in sight.

“Hey,” I said to the one cop who looked vaguely in charge. “You saw how the monsters shattered with a shot after I froze them?”

He gave me a simple nod.

“Get ready,” I told him as I took in a deep breath and got another recent spell ready. My first ever spell was ‘freezing mist’. It was a good little spell back then, but not too useful anymore.

It’s ‘big brother’ on the other hand…

“Freezing Mist, Arctic Ice!” I yelled as a torrent of ice-cold air blew from my outward-facing palms. With no cover to break up the wind, and no innocents in the area in front of me, it was the perfect choice. The dolls tried to approach as they slowly started to freeze. Once they stopped moving completely, I heard the cop I talked to bark to fire.

A torrent of rounds went through the air as ice shards hit the floor. When the bullets and the mist both cleared, there were no more dolls in sight. As I looked back to the many cops staring at me, I found myself wishing that we had decided ahead of time what we were going to tell the authorities.

Rashell POV

As I flew through the air to my first spot, I couldn’t help but think that the mall would work really well as an arena. It was a circular building, with a big open space in the center that was usually filled with chairs for either eating or watching concerts.

With all this chaos, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole area was trashed. Either that or that was where everyone was hunkering down.

Based on the huge swarm of dolls that were surrounding the mall hat I could see from above, It looked like it was the later.

I landed right on top of the mall and glanced back at the central area. It looked like everyone had turned it into a makeshift camp. They had the injured people set up on bedrolls and I spotted some others walking around and doing first-aid.

Maybe I should learn first aid…

Well, maybe something to worry about for another time. For now, I had a crowd of dolls to clear out. I walked back to the edge of the roof and leaned over the side.

“Hey uglies!” I yelled as they looked up and started approaching me. Now I could I stay up here and shoot away with wind and fire at a distance. I had the spells and the aim to make that plan work.

Or I could jump down there and fight up-close for no real advantage…

I reached for my magic and applied the concepts that I needed to create a strong localized gale that could be moved by my hand. I jumped down, spinning in the air as I cut through the first doll with my brand new air katana.

Tina, you might be a weirdo, but you have some good taste.

I landed with my feet on the ground and started slashing away at the dolls. One by one they were cut in two as I made my way through the crowd. One of the dolls got a bit too close, only for me to spin around and leave a trail of flames where the edge of my air sword had been.

As I cut through the crowd of dolls, I could see the people inside the wall watching me. Seeing my captive audience, I kicked things up a bit. If I could make one air blade and control it with my hand then…

I dismissed the blade before somersaulting through the air and forming two more at the end of my feet. I sliced through another doll before landing on both of my feet. I stretched my legs out and spun, cutting through at least three more. I detached the blades from my feet and grabbed them with my hands.

A neat trick I figured out early with my swords, was that I could use them as other spells. A few additional concepts added onto them and they started spinning in place before I sent them out.

I still didn't have a way for them to come back yet, so, for now, I was content with just creating a new one. Also had to figure out how to do the thing where I sliced a doll in two, but they only came apart after I dismissed my blade.

I made a personal note to figure that out as I went back to slicing up the dolls, throwing in the occasional air bullet where needed. By the time the area was clear, the people who had been inside the mall had mostly gathered at the walls to watch me.

I blinked as the group watched me dismiss the last of my air blades. It didn't take too long to notice that a few of them had their phones out to record… This would be one of the first moments that magic would be recorded for the world to see. Fourteen billion eyes were on me, I had to act properly.

“Peace out,” I said as I threw up a peace sign and flew away to the next spot.

With the mall clear, I had to get to the next spot as soon as possible. I dashed off further north to a familiar spot. I landed at the docks where we fought the… where we fought something.

Now it was full of dolls. Fortunately, it had already been evacuated so it was just me and… why were there three people in black cloaks fighting the dolls?

I landed on top of a shipping container and watched as three hooded figures jumped around and fought off the dolls. They would keep their distance, until they saw an opening and descended upon a single doll. From there they would slice at it with the silver swords they each had in their hand.

“What are these things?” One of the figures yelled in a youngish voice. Now that I really looked at them a little better, they were about my size.

“Whatever they are, they don’t bleed,” A haughty voice said before it’s matching figure cut a doll and got splashed with a bit of ooze. “Ugh, Kind of wish they did,”

“Considering what happens when you touch blood, I am okay with that,” The tired and only male voice said as he landed on another container next to me. He looked over to me and I could make out just the barest hint of dark skin under the cloak. “Hi?”

“Sup,” I told him before jumping down and creating an air blade. I sliced through another doll as it was about to lunge at another one of the figures.

“Who are you… and what are you wearing?” The haughty voice demanded as it twisted around a doll’s claw and sliced it’s arm clean off.

“What’s wrong with what I'm wearing?” I demanded as I looked down at my green bodysuit covered in a cape. I looked cool… didn't I?

“Lucy, It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, as long as she’s on our side,” The first voice yelled as she cut the head off a doll. I saw another one come up from behind her so I ran forwards and beheaded it before it could hurt her. I kept going, slicing through a few more dolls until I reached another shipping container. I glanced to my side and saw that a large chunk of the dolls was grouping up in one particular spot. I looked at the metal in front of me as an idea formed.

I mean, the dolls were already making a mess so…

I used a combination of my enhanced strength and wind powers to lift the empty container up before unleashing a gale that sent it swinging into the crowd of dolls.

“Nice,” The only boy said as he landed next to me. “Only got a few more left now,”

“Piece of cake,” I declared before running at the last few dolls and throwing my sword at them. It sliced a doll in two just as I reached the group and created another sword.

The last few dolls fell and soon I was standing in front of the three cloaked figures.

“Well, this is a mess,” The first of the figures said as she threw her hood back to reveal a Hispanic girl with shoulder-length curly hair and a somewhat long pointy nose.

“You’re telling me, what are these things?” The haughty one asked as she pulled her hood back to reveal a pale-skinned blond who looked at least two hundred percent done with the situation. She pointed straight at me. “You know anything about this? And while I'm at it, what kind of hunter are you running around in something like that,”

“Hunter?” I asked, wondering why I suddenly a hunter of all things. I don’t even look good in orange.

“You know, a Hunter, a Human that kills monsters. What else would you be?” She demanded as the last of the figures pulled down their hood. He looked like he was both really tired and really wanted the blond to shut up.

“I think the term that my friend keeps throwing around is ‘magical girl’,” I finally explained. “My other friends don’t like it that much, but I’m okay with it,”

The three of them just sort of stared at me for a moment before dashing away in different directions.

“Hey wait come back,” I yelled as they vanished from sight.

Melodia POV

“Maybe I should make the motorcycle fly,”

“What was that?” my brother said as we made our way down the back streets towards the first of our targets. “I couldn't hear you over the motorcycle,”

“I was thinking that I could work some magic to make the motorcycle fly,” I said again a little louder. True, the first time I said it, it had been mostly to myself, but now I wanted my brother’s input.

“You can do that?” He asked as he glanced down at the motorcycle. I would have told him to keep his eyes on the road, but it was pretty empty all things considered.

“Well, Tina’s been teaching me a few things about enchanting objects with my spells,” I explained as I reminded myself that Project Talos was supposed to stay secret. “So I think I could pull it off as long as I had a chance to try it out on some other stuff first,”

We were trying to distract ourselves, that much was clear to both of us. After today’s chaos, everyone was going to know about magic. What that meant for the world, I had no clue.

We spent the rest of the trip in silence as we reached the first of our targets.

“There it is,” Enrique said as he stopped the motorcycle at the edge of the river as we both got off and looked at the shopping center across on the other side. The Parking lot was filled with burning cars and crawling with dolls.

“You ready to do this?” He asked me he stood next to me.

“With the way those dolls are trying to break down those doors, they’re probably filled with people I have to save,”

“Never thought that my little sister would be the kind of person to say something like that,” He said with a chuckle as he held his fist out for me. “Go show them what you’re made of Meloida Sonata Gomez Saurez,”

I smirked at the use of my full name and met his fist with mine before leaping over the river into the shopping center. As I sailed through the air, my eyes passed over the dolls looking for the biggest group. I noticed them easily enough, and as soon as I landed, I was running at them at full sprint.

I came to a stop just far enough from the dolls that they didn't spot me. While I had gotten to like the more mage like aspects of my magic, I had to admit that I still liked my pre-made spells.

Like this one.

“Gravity Calamity” I yelled as I created a small hole behind all small crowd of dolls. With how weak they were, they had no choice but to be pulled in. I dismissed the black hole before it could become a problem, but even then it had already done a toll on the dolls’ numbers.

However while I had lessened the number of dolls, I had also gotten the attention of every single other doll in the parking lot. They all rushed me in a violent horde, a massive sea of claws, teeth, and fists ready to kill me.

I just closed my eyes… and made the gravity in the area around me as high a possible.

While a stronger doll might have been able to power through it, these things must have been made on the cheap or something. I swear, even the one from earlier today was stronger and smarter than these losers.

I watched in disgust as the increased gravity slowly squished each doll like a bunch of zits. By the time I was done, the floor was covered in doll ooze and the people were starting to come out of the stores. Luckily for everyone involved, none of them were dumb enough to walk into the zone of increased gravity.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” I muttered to myself, hoping that my next fight would be just like this one.

“Melodia, is that you?”

My eyes snapped to meet Ray’s as he approached hesitantly. I took a moment to remember that I was wearing a bright purple jacket covered in stars.

“Would you believe me if I said no?” I asked him as I felt my face heating up.

“Okay it’s you,” He said simply as he looked down at the dissolving ooze. “What’s happening?”

“I’d love to tell you, but I'm a bit busy actually,” I explained, and not just because I really wanted to get out of there. “This isn’t just happening here, it’s happening all over town. I have to head over to the shopping district and take care of an attack there,”

“Oh,” He said, only sounding half convinced. “Well, stay safe?”

“I will,” I said with a nod as I felt my blush go down just a bit. Now all I had to do was run off while ignoring the giant crowd of people that were all looking at me and oh god I felt like a tomato.

“Why am I like this,” I said as I jumped back over the river to where Enrique was waiting.

“You know I would have saved that little speech for another time if I knew you were going to do that,” He said as he pointed to the now parking lot I had squished the dolls on.

“Sorry, but we are in a hurry,” I pointed out.

Enrique just shrugged before getting we both got on the motorcycle and headed to the shopping district as quickly as possible.

A few minutes of riding through the back neighborhoods of the city and we arrived at the shopping district. I flinched as I watched the mass of dolls that were… not crawling all over the broken windows and trashed stores?

“Where the heck is everything?” I demanded as the two of us got off the motorcycle.

“There’s no one here,” Enrique said as he knelt down next to a turned-over bench.

“I don’t like this,” I said just as a massive amount of people wearing body armor erupted from the stores all around us. Before either of us could react, Enrique and I were completely surrounded by an army of masked humans all aiming guns at us.

“Don’t you move witch!”

Ana POV

I jumped through the air through my light glyphs as I reached the first of the targets. The flat walk was a long pedestrian road that went down the side of the beach. It was normally filled with beachgoers, shops, restaurants, that kind of thing. Today it had all of those plus a whole lot of dolls too.

I got onto the path and waited for the civilians getting chased by the dolls to make it past me. Once they did, I threw up the strongest barrier I could behind me. No dolls were getting past… why were all the dolls concentrating on someone else?

I rushed forward, punching and kicking my way through the dolls until I reached what they had all been focused on. In the center of the crowd of dolls was a normal looking girl my age.

Well, normal except for the giant claw that she had in place of a hand. With a single swing, she tore into a doll with enough strength to rip it in two. I saw another doll rush up behind her, only for four black tentacles to explode from her back and skewer it.

What was she? Some sort of other monster? But she was fighting the dolls…

I decided to just fight the dolls for now. If monster girl gave me any trouble, I’d deal with her then. For now, I had dolls to destroy.

I rushed up the first doll, my hand covered in a layer of light that burned through the doll and left a gaping hole where its chest had been. A few more of those punches to the rest of the dolls, and soon I was the one getting their attention.

I smirked as they closed in on me. With a single clap of my hands, I had formed an almost perfect orb of light around me. The only way to get at me now was to come at me head-on.

“Thanks for the help,” The girl said as she took advantage of the dolls starting to attack me to break out of the group. I couldn't really see much of her past the waves of dolls, but I could see glimpses of her for changing.

When a large dog-like monster covered in black chitin started tearing through the doll with claws, teeth, and tentacles, I knew that it was her.

I cut the dolls in front of me with my light as she sliced her way around the edge of the group.

When the last doll fell, the dog-like monster came to a stop right in front of me. I gulped as it changed shape again into the girl I had seen at the beginning.  
We both just sort of stood there looking at each other.

“So…” The girl finally said to break the silence. “What kind of mad science they do on you to give you those shields,”

“What…?” I said as I tried to process what she just said.

“What?” She said back at me.

“What do you mean ‘mad science’?” I demanded as I noticed the sound of approaching footsteps.

“That sounds like DOSP,” She said as she turned towards the source of the noise. “Looks like this vacation is ruined,” She turned back to me and gave me a serious look. “Listen I won’t tell anyone about… whatever you are if you don’t say anything about me,”

“Deal,” I said as I jumped away out of range. I looked back once I was far away enough and saw the girl meet with a bunch of guys wearing suits.  
For some reason, I felt as though they were from the government. What had she called them, Dosp?

I decided to put it out of my mind for now until the dolls were dealt with. Specifically, I had to deal with the dolls that were crawling around my next target, North Palm middle school.

I came to a stop right at the edge of the school, the area long since evacuated. I looked at the Dolls walking around tearing the place up.

Had to admit, part of me wanted to just leave and let the Dolls wreck the place. But it was summer, and knowing my luck they’d finish fixing the place by the time school started up again.

“Let’s do this,” I said as I looked at my hands and tried something that I had attempted so many times at this point. I tried to think back to that night.

The anger.

The grief.

The vampire.

I imagined the feel of the light blade in my hand. The power, comfort, and the warmth that it filled me with.

When I opened my eyes, the sword of light was nowhere to be seen.

“Of course,” I told myself as I jumped off the building towards the school, ready to fight the dolls with my regular light magic.

‘Regular magic’ how was that for a concept. I created a barrier of light around my fist as I hit a doll upon landing. When had something like this become normal for me?

Oh well, that’s something that I could worry about another day.

The dolls started pouring through the courtyards and hallways to get at me as I put up a wall of light in front of me. With a single motion, I shattered it and sent the shards flying at the dolls. The shards of light tore at them as they were flayed to pieces.

I jumped atop one of the tables creating another wall and shattering it with my fist before the dolls could get any closer. As the mass of dolls advanced, I jumped away to another desk.

“Making so many was a dumb idea,” I said as the dolls in front of me died in droves. “What was the point of… oh right, the reveal,”

That was going to be weird going forward. With how many people had already seen my face, there was no chance that we were making it through this without someone's face getting revealed.

In hindsight, it was actually a little ridiculous that we hadn't been caught earlier. Maybe Clancy had a point about magic being alive and wanting to stay hidden.

By the time I had taken out the dolls, the school was trashed. Nothing that they couldn't repair by the time the fall came but trashed nonetheless.

"But why couldn't I use my sword?" I asked myself aloud as I looked at my hand.

A loud crashing noise caught my attention. I looked up at the top of the school and saw a strange figure looking down at me. I watched it carefully, unsure as to what it might do.


End file.
